Yesterday, J.P. suddenly expressed a strong desire to go on a run with me. He's run with me before but not often. Over the years, I've made a point not to try to talk him into running with me. He understands what an important part of my life running is, for sure. But I want him to come to running on his own, if at all. I don't want him to be a runner because he thinks its something I want him to do. It's got to be something he wants to do. That's my view, anyway.
He ran cross county for USN last fall and, actually, was quite good for never having seriously run before. He placed in the top 10 - around 5, 6, or 7, as I recall - in the four or five meets he ran at the 1 1/2 mile distance. I was very proud of him but after the brief cross country season ended, he didn't express an interest in continuing to train so I left it alone. For him, it was off to fall soccer, then basketball.
I think the reason for his sudden interest was that he learned from Jude that his good friend, Cooper, had been running three miles a day in his neighborhood. J.P. is nothing if not competitive, and I love that about him.
So, in typical J.P. fashion, he asked me five or six times last night if he could run with me this morning, what time was I going to run, etc. And, sure enough, he appears at the foot of my bed about 7 a.m. and asked, again, if he could run with me. We agreed I would get my longer run in, then run an extra mile with him after I finished.
I left the house about 7:30 a.m. and ran four miles while listening to one of my favorite podcasts - I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats. An easy run down past USN and back un 21st Avenue. When I finished my cool down walk in front of our house, he was out the front door and ready to go. J.P. has has a one track mind when he decides he wants to do something.
We ended up running two miles together at about 8:14 per mile. A conversational, nice training pace for him, I think. I enjoyed every step of the run immensely. He asked questions about running, training, why I run, etc. I answered his questions and shared with him some of my general thoughts about running. Not too much and nothing too intense but just enough, hopefully, to whet his appetite.
We finished our run at Portland Brew, so we could get coffee and hot chocolate. As we walked, a young man I recognized drove up on a motorcycle. I smiled as he took off his helmet and said, "Anthony! What's up!"
Striking handsome, with a huge smile spreading across his face, Anthony Woodland walked over an gave us fist bumps. He told us had been in Bowling Green, Kentucky, yesterday on a modeling short for Eddie Bauer. He showed us a video on his cell phone of him riding his motorcycle down a runway and a small airplane roaring up behind him and taking off just over his head. "That's cool," J.P. said. And it was cool.
I bought Anthony's Iced Dirty Chai, whatever that is, and talked with for a few minutes while we waited for our drinks.
What I learned and what was a gut punch, in some ways, is that Anthony turns 30 years old this week. 30! Where did his 20's go?!?
When Anthony as 12 years old - the same age as J.P. is now - I hired him to cut the grass in our old house on Elliott Avenue. He was a neighborhood kid who, I knew, had a difficult family situation. I drove him home a time or two to his house across Wedgewood Avenue. That area of town has changed a lot in the last decade but it was rough at the time.
Anthony always had the best personality, just as he does now. Always smiling, always happy. To me, and I've written this before, he was like a flower that somehow, miraculously, grow to it's full height out of a crack in the sidewalk. That was him. That is him.
Anthony grew older, went to high school, first at Hillsboro HS, later at Nashville School of Arts, a magnet school. I stumbled into taking him there for his in person interview, which is another story I think I've written about in this space, years ago. He occasionally stopped by our old house, and our new house, and I'd see him from time to time in 12South. I picked up his tab a time or two when I used to frequent Edley's, when he was on a date or there with a friend.
And now he's about to turn 30. And J.P. is 12, the same age Anthony was when I first met him.
Time is strange thing, as one of my barista friends at Portland Brew said to me this morning when I told her why I was buying Anthony's drink. And she was so right.
Time is a strange thing.
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