<respectfully snipped for focus>
I am a runner, too, and I tend to think about Lauren while I'm running.
I can remember you mentioning that several times during Lauren's threads, PJ. You'd say something like, "I was out running the other day and ... I saw (or thought, or wondered)" ... and then something connected with Lauren.
I admire you both for the running habit! I had some brief stints of trying to run in years past, but just never kept it up. And I really enjoyed it, too -- well, parts of it, anyhow -- not sure why the habit never caught on with me.
I never met Lauren, but I really do think I saw her one time. It sort of haunts me, now.
I was driving down College Street in Macon (I don't live in Macon but travel there fairly often) and, at one of the intersections, a runner waiting to cross the street really caught my attention -- a tall, statuesque blonde with her hair up, very fit-looking, very striking. You couldn't help but notice her. Definitely was in Lauren's "neighborhood". I can't remember exactly when this was but it had to have been not too long before Lauren's death or I don't think the memory would have sprung almost immediately to mind for me, which it definitely did, when details about "who Lauren was" began to come out in the media after her murder. Now that memory seems like a moment frozen in time in my head.
Of course, I am not sure the runner I saw was Lauren, but I really feel it probably was. I wish I knew for sure.