Start time: 09/07/06, 7:00pm
Location: Old Town Alexandria and the Mount Vernon Trail
Distance: 5.1 miles
Average pace: 8:34min/mile

First, the running stuff. I skipped Tuesday’s run (tummy troubles), so I was eager to get back out on the trail today. We took our first mile a little fast at 8:18 (sorry guys!), so after that I moved to the back of the group and even after slowing down a bit in mile 2 to try and keep everyone from keeling over, we still knocked out the rest at a pretty fast pace (8:58, 8:38, 8:42, 8:31). Phew. (But kicking butt!)

While we were out running, one of the other regulars (whom we’ll call TM) was out in front of us. He’s a (former, I think) marine who usually runs in front of us a little bit, and we often catch him at which point he’ll sprint ahead a bit more. Runs by himself, with headphones on… I’m not entirely sure why he shows up to group runs. Anyway, we caught him with about a mile to go this evening and he couldn’t go any faster so he ran with us for a little bit. Darrell was singing silly songs so TM offered up some cadence. Darrell instantly began to warp the responses (which was pretty funny), and TM seemed a little frustrated but struggled on. TM’s cadence had to do with beating up Superman and marrying Lois Lane, and then all of the sudden this charmer of a couplet came out: “Nine months later we had a baby / He was a fag so he joined the Navy.”

An instant silence fell over the group (we were stopped waiting for a street light to change) and I must have given him a look. Before I could say anything else, the light switched, and the group ran on and left TM behind. Afterwards, we were at the running store getting water and I was about to walk back outside when he came in and walked over to me. “I hope you’re not Navy,” he said, “I didn’t mean to offend anyone.”

“Oh no,” I replied, looking down at him*. “But I’ve slept with enough military men that I understand.” He gave a sort of chuckle and I kept walking outside. I’m not sure if it sunk in or not (and I could’ve been more direct but I was tired and sweaty and am happy I at least fired that one off at him—a blatant lie, I might add, but he doesn’t need to know that) but I’m sure sooner or later it will.

We’ll see if he tries to run with us again!

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=389088

* — I say looking down at him because TM is easily under five feet tall. An unnecessary detail but I can be snappish when I want to.