Dependency

My name is David and I am a runner.

There. I admitted it. I am hopelessly dependent. I don't know what the creed is to come to grips with the reality that my life is different that it used to be but it struck me like a pink slip last night.

We hosted Supper Club, a traditional gathering of former neighbors (once nine couples, last night just five) that rotate the hosting duties every other month and rotate the libation and course responsibilities too. I know supper clubs are not uncommon. It surprises me that we have continued so long since only two couples remain in the old neighborhood. We've been assembling ever since the mid 1980s and it has been an interesting evolution. Children are born, grow up and leave. Couples break up. Jobs change. Personalities develop. Old age creeps in. One constant: the food is always good.

Last night, once all the folks had arrived and the first round was served, the guys asked me to turn on the TV so they could watch college football. That's not entirely uncommon but it was strange for me as they began regaling each other with all the minutia of games played earlier in the day. To me it was a familair but forgotten language. For 30 years I worked in college football and could talk my way through any conversation with some forbearance of knowledge. On this occasion, I was clueless. I didn't even realize the season had started a week ago. I could not care less about who was playing. Where did that old passion go?

To running.

As the evening went on I answered questions about how I was and what I had been doing since we had met last. All I could talk about was my training regimen, how I've never felt better in my life, the New Haven 20K, my RBF friends and a few easy to cover accounts of my son at West Point. For the most part I got blank stares back. One guy runs a little but none of the other guys or their wives run. One couple that was not here do run but they were out of town - running probably.

The guests were drinking. I was thinking about my long run Sunday morning. They shoveled in the chow. I took modest portions. They talked. I thought about seeing my running pals at 700 today. Finally, I went outside on the pool deck and stared in through the windows at the party going on. I was not a part of it or them. It hit me hard. I have become someone else.

I am a runner. I live to run.

I went back in to say goodnight to some who were leaving. Others stayed on to some later hour. I snuck into my room, brushed my teeth and slipped into bed. I had to sleep. I had a date in the morning.

I am a runner.


I woke up at 545 with the eagerness that consumes me. I laced up and ate a banana; drank a tall glass of filtered water and grabbed a towel and water bottle on the way to the car. Driving to Park Avenue, I snapped a picture of Lake Virginia in the early morning light. At 700 I was running and talking with Chris, Tim and Jack; hailing Kim and Mary as they surged past us; and saluting someone else doing a tempo run with a "Great pace!" I was where I wanted to be. I love the morning light and empty streets of a Sunday long run. It is so dramatic. It is the time for runners.

My name is David and I am a runner. See you at the next meeting.