Well… the Scottish poet Robert Burns once wrote, “The best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!” I thought of this quote this morning. I got up on time at 5am, had my Black Rifle CAF cup of coffee, got to the greenway on time as planned, ran a warmup mile and even had a local running group that showed up for their own training run to cheer me on at the start. Sounds good so far right? I started and was hitting my paces at each quarter mile of nearly the first third of the virtual TriSpan 5k.

But then I felt something hitting my left ankle and so I glanced down and to my surprise I see that I had forgotten to double knot my right shoe string and it had come untied! I hadn’t made that mistake in 2.5 years! I kept running and started thinking about not stopping but then my shoe got so loose it started to slip off my heel. So I stopped. I was so mad with myself. I just stood there for several minutes and eventually that running group came by looking puzzled till I explained myself. I walked back to my starting point which was about 3/4 mile from my truck and then decided to give it a go again but by then I was just to mad with myself and dejected. I called it after halfway on the second attempt and went home. I took it easy most of the day and then just went to the Smithfield greenway to run it for fun this evening after some storms blew through. It was 77* and humid. Runniversary 5k done but definitely not how I expected this day to go. No PR either. I will revisit this distance maybe this winter but for now I’m switching gears back to the longer distances I love. Even though my plans didn’t go the way I thought I am thankful for these past 5 years of running and for all of you terrific runners who keep me motivated to beat yesterday and strive for a better me. The running community is one of best parts of this sport! 😎🐝 ⛄️🏃🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♂️ ⠀

Oh and I do have a funny story out of it that I almost forgot to share. On the last mile this evening a kid of around 5 years of age was riding a tricycle on the greenway with his mom and older sibling following him. When he saw me running in his direction he decided to play chicken with me on that straightaway section. I stayed focused straight ahead of me but the closer I got the more I could see he was aiming right for me. He was a brave little guy cause he never stopped! I ended up having to dart to the right into the grass to avoid a collision. His mother and older brother were both apologizing. I couldn’t help but laugh as it seemed a fitting end to my day😂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀