"Are you a runner?"

I took my daughter out to the track at the local park to run some intervals with her the other morning. Being that it was later in the day (i.e. 9 a.m.) I figured that most people would be gone due to the usual amount of heat that we have by that time. (Seriously, if you don't start running before that, it's hard to be excited about going out the door. It's hot.)

We got to the usually crowded track and thankfully it was almost empty. It was just the two of us and two older gentlemen in their late 60s to 70s. (I'm bad at guessing ages.)

We ran around the track together 'racing' each other, which is all fun and games for her, but gets the interval time in for me, for about one mile when she started to wear out on me. (I know, we're working on going longer for her jog-a-thon in the spring. She's "Training.") On our last lap, we were doing our cool down jog when these older gentlemen who were walking towards us, stepped out onto our side of the track and stopped us. The one on the left (and in the picture above) says, "I just have to stop you and ask....Are you a runner?"

While this question may not mean very much to anyone else, to me it meant the world. I don't really consider myself a runner. I'm a triathlete which means I'm mediocre at three sports so I dabble in a bit of each of them so as not to get bored with one and call it good...although wishing I were actually 'good' at any of them.

I went on to explain to him that I'm not actually a runner and that I consider myself more of a triathlete. He says, "You have really great biomechanics. You look like you're a runner. Did you run in college, highschool, etc?" "Nope."

We chit-chatted about running and they told me about their running club here in town. I could tell that I was desperate for friends because when they tried to 'let me go' so I could keep running, I almost held onto their 60 to 70-year-old ankles just so they would keep talking to me about running or anything athletic. I don't make friends easily...we'll just put it that way, as I have yet to befriend anyone here in this angry town. That and I find that I don't easily connect with people who are not sports minded. You would think that I could connect with the mothers of my daughter's classmates because we have children in common. Well, think again. I'm not sure how easily that is going to happen, unless one of them happens to be into athletics. I'm doubtful. I digress.

So I get home and look up my new friend's running club.

Al Lawrence. That's his name. Turns out he's an olympic medalist.

There might be hope for me becoming a runner. It made my day that an olympic medalist from the 1950s told me I had great biomechanics.

(Oh yeah, I think I figured out he's 78. My guess was only a decade off.)