That boy’s a runnin’ fool

One of the two controllable factors in an encounter with a terrorist who is targetting you for attack, is what they call “Time and Place Predictability.” If somebody observes you making the same route each day, they can easily plan a brilliant ambush to take you unawares. Maybe this is difficult to read if you have someone over here or in the military, so let’s soften it up a little bit. . . .

One of the two controllable factors in an encounter with a salesperson in a department store who is targeting you for a sale, is what they call, “Time and Place Predictability.” If you always go to the store on Mondays and you walk the same route through the ailes, it becomes easy for that salesperson to plan a brilliant sales pitch that will quickly relieve you of your resistance and cash.

Everyone tracking?

Well, I was thinking about that this afternoon when I headed out for my first run around the camp. One lap around the place is about a half mile, and it’s a great course because the long end of the rectangle that you run is on a hill, so on the back side of the camp, it’s a long 250 meters of uphill.

But as I was running, I was completely time and and place predictable.

[Simulated Terrorist Dialog:]

“Rahim – look at this guy! He’s in the exact same spot every 3.5 minutes! Is he insane?”

“Shall we shoot him?”

“Rahim – who do you think you are? Osama bin Laden? [Rahim feels mocked by these words] Don’t you know that you never shoot someone who is exercising?” [Rahim is cuffed behind the ears]

But let me tell you, running at 6500 feet is . . . what’s the word? Oh yes – hard. The thing I keep thinking about is how when I get back and run my first race at 2,700 feet in Boise that I will seem to have two sets of lungs – each set of lungs will be so amazing that I’ll finish that race at least a few minutes ahead of my personal best. And people will be like, “Nice lungs.” And I’ll be like, “Which pair?”

So while it may put me in the wrong place at the wrong time, over and over and over again, I think I’m going to stick with it.