Early Morning Brain Fade

I actually have two concrete examples today of what I think of as early morning brain fade.  I'm happy to say that only one of the two examples is me, proving that this happens to many people. 

I've mentioned before that I run with a group of friends a few mornings a week.  Well, this morning the schedules were a little weird so I knew there wouldn't be many people -- sure enough, just me and this guy Bryan.  We haven't run together for very long, but he's a lot of fun to run with.  Insanely sweet and funny.  I suppose if I had been bad when I started high school, he's technically young enough to be my son.  And that's almost the best way to describe him.  He's training for his first marathon, so he has lots of questions, some things I wouldn't have even guessed he didn't know.  He's fast and a very strong runner.  He's also at the point where he just got out of school and hasn't yet made any career decisions.  Working retail, living in an apartment with his older brother, single and enjoy going out (very cute I think, though in a kid way, like he could be 16 or something).  In so many ways, it's like his life is just beginning. 

Well, today, we're running and talking about random stuff.  We hadn't run together much since my marathon so I told him about that, and we were just talking about his upcoming trip with his brother, etc.

I have noticed it before while running, but sometimes when it's so early, not only do I have the weirdest conversations with my running friends, sometimes, it's like we have a collective brain fade.  And today I managed to remember both of them to share.

First, we were running, Bryan on my left and a car was approaching, so we moved further to the left and somehow he got in front of me.  With most of the guys I run with, no big deal, but like I said, in some ways it's like he could be my kid.  Maybe it's since he's more like a baby runner, so I just figured it was smarter for me to be in front of him.  Plus I was wearing a new jacket this morning.  So I sped up, passed him, and ran in front of him until the car passed us.  Afterward, we were side-by-side again, and I said something like, "I thought it was a good idea to be up front because my new jacket is ... reflecty."  Yep, reflecty, my word of the day. 

So then several miles later, we were talking about his upcoming marathon (White Rock next weekend!).  I asked if he knew what he was going to wear, he said yes.  I asked if he had his fueling plan worked out and he said he was planning to carry two gu packets and then he'd take the one offered on the course.  He said something like that was all he could really carry anyway.  You know, unless he stapled them to his shorts or something.  So I was like, "well, or pin them, you could pin them to your shorts.  You know, with safety pins?  That's what I do."  He said something like, "hmm, I don't know how that would work, the wooden ones?"  After many more minutes of telling him that yes, I think it works well to safety pin the very top of a gu packet to my shorts and then peel it off as needed, and eventually we figured out that when I said safety pin, he was picturing those big wooden clothes pins.  Despite the fact I'd said safety pins about 5 times in the course of the conversation.

So there you have it, my examples of the morning haze that seems to hang over me until about 7 a.m.  I would like to say that I'm just sleep-deprived because of my month of yoga experiment, but no, I feel like that pretty much on any run that starts before about 5:30 or 6 a.m.  Oh well, fortunately it seems to happen to most of my friends too and we all know what we mean -- or when we don't, eventually we figure it out...