It has been several years since I put in those long miles during a run. I ran for 20 years or so and covered a lot of miles. I was reminded of this the other day as I was shopping. A person I didn’t recognize came up to me and asked if I still ran around town. It took me back to the fact that when you are one person out on the road and covering most of the city it is easy to see why so many people will see you. When I trained for a marathon my route was to run to Hunter and back; then take off down Aqua Rena Springs to the Holiday Inn; head down the access road to the Little League Ball Park; turn on San Antonio Street and head back home for a nice 22 mile training run. I never thought much about it, but when this person asked if I still ran, it occurred to me that between a county road and city streets a lot of people probably caught a glimpse of me.
The difficult part of this exchange is that he seemed to know my name, where I ran in town, and talked to me like we were old acquaintances. I am not that good at remembering names as it is and over the years knowing people’s names without some reference to where we met is becoming more of a problem. It gets embarrassing when I meet a former student and they introduce me to their parent. I greet the parent and then they proceed to tell me that they had me as a professor when they were in school. It is bad enough that I may not remember the student, but when you can’t remember the parent you know you are getting old.
It is easier now that I do more walking than running. That gives me a chance to see who is honking, or yelling, at me as they go by since I have more time to glance up at the person. When I recall my running days and a car drove by, a honk on the horn, a wave of the hand out the window, and a “Hey, Moe”, and I tried to catch a quick glimpse of the source. If the car is distinctive and I recognize it I have a good idea of who was calling my name. But, it seems to me that there are a lot of cars that look very similar and most have those darkened windows.
