I wanted one running partner. Maybe three.
The plan was to meet at Grand Army Plaza at 6 a.m., run one or two laps of Prospect Park, and do it every morning from November through March. Pretty much no matter the weather.
I sent a note around looking for people who ran somewhere between seven and eight minutes per mile. More specifically, I was looking for runners in roughly mid-17 to 19-minute 5K shape who wanted to be faster in the spring.
It was a very Chris invitation. Early, specific and more ambitious than it needed to be.
Winter running gets harder because of everything around the run. It is dark when the alarm goes off. The apartment is warm. Nobody is waiting for you. One missed morning becomes a few, and suddenly the normal routine is gone.
The easiest way to fix that was to put other people at the park.
Enough runners replied that it stopped being a search for one partner. I expected a solid group of three or four, then made a group chat so everybody could work out the details. There were different pace bands. Some people would run around 8:00 to 8:30. Others would be closer to 7:00 or 7:30.
The exact pace was not the important part. Showing up was.
The official start was supposed to be November. I did not wait.
“I’m starting tomorrow :)”
Prospect Park was already the center of my running life. I knew the loop, the hills, where the wind would be bad and how long it took to get back home. What I did not have was a standing winter crew at the north end of the park before sunrise.
So I tried to make one.
The first version of the group was just an email, a meeting point and a slightly unreasonable promise about the weather. That was enough to get us out the door.