It's Not About The Miles

This is a photo of my friend.  A real friend.  Seriously, the real kind.

He would be quite mad if he knew I posted this.

But the good thing about friends is that they are resilient and forgiving.  He'll get over his irritation pretty quickly.  He's a very kind man and has a lot of practice forgiving me.

I have known my friend since 1994.  We became buddies through running.  We are not fast, but we have endurance.  The good thing about running slowly is that you are together longer.

By a conservative estimate, we have run together about 280 days per year for twenty years.  Typically 3 miles per day except for Fridays and Sundays when we go 6.  Sometimes we skip in bad weather or when we have nagging injuries.  That's becoming more frequent these days.

Nonetheless, I estimate that we have run about 22,500 miles together.  That's New York to L.A. seven times.  Since we average about 9:30 minutes per mile, that's about 212,800 minutes or 3,600 hours we've been together.  Or 147 days.  Or 12.25 months.  Or, put another way, over a year. A year of "together-time" on the trails and roads around Fort Worth.

It's not about the miles.  It is about time and about conversations.  Since we run at a conversational pace, we talk.  Always talk.  About life.

Over the years we have talked about births and deaths.  Hiring and firing.  Sadness and gladness.  Trips.  Children.  Wives.  Aging.  Schools.  Deployment.  New York and California.  Texas and Massachusetts.  The Yankees and the Rangers.  Basketball.  Football.  Lots of football.  Falcons and Trojans and Barons and Keydets and Bison.

By the way, he is not Derek Jeter.

He's my friend.