I’ve been a sometime-runner most of my life. It started in high school, when I discovered that running, unlike softball or basketball, was a sport I really could do. I’ve never had the skill for team sports, so when my friend suggested I run at the track with her, I almost didn’t do it. In retrospect it was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.
Running is a sport that provides tons of benefits but doesn’t require much ability. There are no rules and no winners or losers. The only person I compete against is myself. I’ll work myself hard at times, but most of the time it’s easy to not care about how fast or how long I run. I just set a goal and try to make it. The fun comes from the act of running.
I say I’m a “sometimes-runner” because I’ve never been dedicated to the sport. There have been periods in my life when I’ve run a lot and times when I don’t do it for months. When I birthed my children, I stopped running for a few years. Then one day, when the stress of raising a family started to affect me, I started running again. For awhile, I ran for 30 minutes three times a week at the fitness club, using a treadmill until we moved into a brand new home in a very nice new subdivision. By this time I was in my late 30s and it wasn’t as easy as it used to be. But I was rather proud of myself for still having the stamina to run three miles at my “old” age.
Once we were moved, I sometimes opted to skip the club and run in our new neighborhood. It’s always harder to run on pavement than on a treadmill, and I remember thinking “I’m too old for this” and feeling a little foolish for trying so hard to be able to run like I did ten years previously. So I didn’t run outside regularly.
Then, one day, that changed.
I started my run, always at dawn or just before, and was just rounding the corner at the end of the block when my path crossed that of an older man. I could tell by his hair that he was much older than me, maybe in his late 50s or early 60s, but he was jogging at a steady gait and had the obvious physique of someone who runs for a hobby. Definitely not a sometime-runner. We threw our hands up at each other as we passed.
The next time, and many times after, we saw each other again. I noticed he was wearing white/offwhite shirt and shorts, not the usual “track” clothes that runners wear. And he wore what I call “boat shoes”, those canvas slip-ons with rubber soles, not the usual sneakers. His shoes slapped the pavement as he ran, so on the rare mornings when all was quiet I could sometimes hear him coming before I saw him. Flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flop they went, with the regular rhythm of someone who is relaxed at a comfortable pace. His clothes reminded me of what we wore in the military for PT, but whether or not he was a veteran would always remain a mystery.
As the months rolled on and our paths crossed, I deduced that he lived a few blocks north from my house. I never ran on that particular street, so I never found out for sure. He always chose to run down the middle of a street; I’d usually run close to the side, skirting parked cars as I went, mostly so I could stay in the shade of the small trees. He ran down more streets than I did, because some days I’d see him jog along a street leading to a cul-de-sac, then later see him coming out of another one. And there’d be days when I didn’t run, yet I’d see him jogging by our house. So I figured he ran at least five days, if not every day of the week, and probably a minimum of three miles each time. A dedicated jogger.
My family and I lived in that house for over eight years. Being a sometimes-runner, there were months when I’d go out three times a week and months when I’d barely fit in three runs for the whole month. During all that time, I never stopped to ask him his name, and he never stopped to chat with me. We’d put a hand up if we passed, but no other communication ever took place. I was comfortable with this. I knew from watching him that our strides didn’t match, and I liked the peace of running by myself. I had no motivation to want a running partner. Therefore, when we moved away, I didn’t think another thought about the floppy-shoed man.
Seven years went by. Our family decided we wanted to move back to the same neighborhood. We found a house five blocks south of our old home. It surprised us that this home, once part of the “new” area of the neighborhood, had changed so much in such a short time. All the trees in the subdivision had grown huge while we were gone. Some of the neighbors had painted their homes a different color. A new neighborhood park had been built during our absence, surrounded on all four sides by tree-lined streets.
We settled in, and although I had been running off-and-on at fitness clubs over the years since we’d left, I had to train myself once again for running three miles. I was now in my mid-40s, so I started slowly and worked built up my stamina until I could go the full thirty minutes. I found out I couldn’t keep the same pace that I once had, but it didn’t deter me. My route was different, too. The subdivision had grown so much in our absence, adding several new streets on both the north and south ends, that I could get the entire 3 mile run finished without ever having to run down a street twice or enter a cul-de-sac.
Then, one clear morning when the sun was just rising above the park, I saw him again. He’d aged a lot, now looking like he was in his 70s. Although he still wore the white/offwhite shirt and shorts, his ensemble now included a floppy beige bucket hat—the kind some men wear when they golf. His back wasn’t as straight as it used to be, and his gait was considerably slower. He was jogging, but the pace was so slow that I could pass him with my normal walking speed. I put up my hand, and he put up his as we passed — just like we used to do.
I wondered if he remembered me, if he’d been jogging through the neighborhood every day since I’d left and one day noticed I was gone. What it might have been like when he jogged past all the new homes as they were being built. Did he wonder why the new owners of my previous home change its color from a happy yellow to a dismal gray-blue? Did he see when our old neighbors on the corner moved out, or when the people at the entrance to the subdivision completely replaced their lawn with gravel? What was it like to see the trees change and grow so large that they provided shade all the way into the middle of the street where he liked to run?
So much about the neighborhood was different to me. But the old man was still there.
I began looking for him on my morning runs, started feeling concern if I didn’t see him. Was he okay? Did he have to miss a run because of his health? Did he have a wife or children or grandchildren to take care of him, someone to check on him if he didn’t get home at the usual time?
I never found out because we never stopped to chat, never once told each other our names. We didn’t have to; our strides didn’t match and I liked the peace of running by myself. We didn’t see each other every run—the neighborhood had grown so large that his route was mostly on the northern streets and mine to the south. But sometimes one of us would go the extra distance and our paths would cross. I like to think of it as our way of checking in, seeing if the other person was still there, still going.
Two years later my family and I moved again, this time permanently out of the neighborhood. We live in a completely different state now, one with hills and narrow roads that make it difficult to run outside. Now I’m in my 50s and trying to decide whether or not I want to run a 5k. I’ve been doing my sometimes-running on a treadmill; I know that I could finish the race, but my pace is much slower than it used to be and it takes me forty minutes instead of thirty to run the entire distance. I wonder if I’m being foolish, trying so hard to run at my “old” age.
And then I think of the old man, and in my mind I hear him coming…flop…flop…flop…flop…flop…flop. If I can run just a little longer, I’ll see him and we’ll put a hand up to each other as we pass.
It makes me smile.
So I just keep running.
Originally posted at annettezimmerman.com
P.S. I did run the 5k in November 2018. Placed 2nd for my age group, received a pretty wooden block with the Tweetsie train on it for an award, and had a lot of fun, too!
