Walking Monday

Walking and running, for me, has always been best when it is a team sport, a social event where my friends and I can chat, tell stories, work through our life challenges, and if not find a solution, at least get the benefit of a therapeutic conversation.

This started for me, as many things do, with my father, who shared my preference for running with companions. As the oldest son, I was the first one to be told by my dad to lace up my running shoes to join him for a run.  I was, to say the least, not inclined to join him without being coerced or bribed, but my dad was old school in the way of dads in the Seventies, and if he told me to go, I went.

On the road, he found things to divert me from my everlasting pain.  For awhile, we collected beer cans from the side of the road, looking for interesting or unusual brands.  (This was before the craft beer movement, so most of the cans thrown by North Texas rednecks were what you’d expect, cheap and ubiquitous national brands, although we’d see a Lone Star or an Abita from Louisiana or a Mexican beer now and then to pique our interest.)

Then it was conversations about girls. He was 23 when I was born, so I always suspected that he was young enough to want to live vicariously through my conquests.  Once again, I was probably a bitter disappointment to him, because I’d not really learned how to overcome my core shyness until I got to college.  My dates were chaste and gentlemanly, hardly interesting at all.

When I moved to Austin for school, I was more into basketball than running, but I’d occasionally jog through campus or the Capitol complex, always a fun run with lots to see (and a really cold water fountain inside the Capitol building, which you probably can’t do today for security reasons).

When I moved to Houston after law school, I would find interesting people to run with.  One was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, another was a medical ethicist, and one was a law school intern who eventually came to work at the DA’s office (and eventually became a respected judge).  That last partner and I trained together for the Houston Marathon in 1994, spending hours together talking about everything.  To this day, our discussions are governed by a concept we called “runner’s privilege.”  He knows more about me than most of my family.

Today, I walk with my friend A, and we have similar long conversations about life, the universe and everything. I’d tell you more about what we discuss but,,, runners privilege.

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Today, it was a three mile walk at Memorial Park, then gym time (chest day), then some leftover pizza for lunch and a short nap.  After I showered, my trainer called to see if I wanted to join him and his wife for another walk.  I did and we did.

Then, I cooked a frozen turkey pot pie I’d made last November with leftover Thanksgiving turkey, and we watched the Astros win over the Red Sox on TV.

A mellow day, mostly exercise.