The story this morning is not the conditions (11°, grey, humid, stiff limbs, relaxed pace) but the way that, on the home stretch, a much younger runner came up behind and passed me with no apparent effort at all. He just breezed by — smooth, steady, not pressing, not bounding or sprinting, just breezing. After he passed, I made a couple of futile efforts to match his pace, but it was as if we were different species; he had access to wells of strength and flexibility and energy that I ceded decades ago (if I ever had them). And since he wasn’t in a big hurry, he remained in my line of sight most of the rest of the way home, just coolly flowing along, taunting me with his vitality.
Bless him, he’s probably good-looking, too. And employed. Oh well, two miles more.