Not Yet

 The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of other things. Of shoes and splits and ten K times, of cabbages and kings. For the purposes of this discussion, the Walrus will not be Paul. The walrus will be me. 

Or I will be the walrus. Which is I find a little odd, since this was the way a grade school classmate described me when she was accusing me of ruining our class picture. Connected to this mild derision was the feeling I have endured for most of my life: being the round kid. The one who got picked last. The one at the back of the pack. 

Struggling. 

When my father invited me to join him running the Bolder Boulder race with him back in 1982, it seemed like a lark, of sorts. That's when I took up the sport, and I have been running ever since. 

Except now it's not really "running." To "run," one must have an aerial phase, or a moment when both feet are off the ground. There was a time when this was something I accomplished with relative ease. It provided me a means to the end of not being quite so round, and though I had already passed the phase of life in which teams were being picked on a regular basis, I flattered myself that I would no longer be the last one waiting to be selected. 

These days, I still head out every day with the intent of covering two to five miles, depending on how much locomotion I have experienced or will experience throughout the day. In my mind, I am still churning out the miles. Every so often a neighbor or friend will encounter me along my selected route, and lately they ask the same question: "Out for a walk?"

And I know they aren't far wrong. There was a time when I was committed to a mile in under ten minutes. Now I creep along somewhere in the fifteen minute area. Chugging along. I don't stop, unless someone needs to ask me directions. Then it's back to plodding. 

Ultimately it's about the cardiovascular, which I have been assured by medical professionals is just fine thank you. This does not keep me from noticing when someone else breezes by me as I am making my way toward my destination. In my head, I tend to do a quick assessment: how old do you suppose that guy is? how many miles has she run already? how did that seventy year old guy just pass me by walking when we were both going downhill? 

I take comfort in knowing that it's not a race. As long as I lace up my sneakers each day and head out to perambulate in some fashion or another, there is no finish line. Not yet. Not for me.