I stopped jogging with my buddies because, well, you know, social distancing.
Lucky for me, our high school senior wants to exercise but needs motivating, so now she joins me. Katie’s one third my age, has much longer legs, a longer stride and is….faster.
We start off together, and if it’s a particularly long run, she might hang back so she doesn’t get pooped heading out too fast. Other times, she will shoot ahead fairly quickly but wait for me at intervals.
Since we’ve been jogging together, I have had multiple people—older men, EVERY time—make comments about the gap between us. The first time, a guy chuckled and told me I was doing a good job social distancing.
Today we took a lap around Lake Accotink in Springfield. Katie was doing her thing. I had gone about a third of the way when a mature gentleman (sitting on a bench next to his bike) smiled and remarked, “She’s way ahead of you.”
Now, whenever this happens, I always reply with something about social distancing and we both laugh. It’s become the common refrain for our times.
On the last stretch, there was a fairly long straightaway. Katie took off. As I neared the end of our loop, another older man greeted me with, “She’s smoking you…”
How the heck did he even know we were together?
Before I had a chance to register that as an insult, he added, “but you’re fine!”
I flipped on my “glass-is-half-full” attitude and chose to take it as a backhanded compliment.
Now, if I could just convince that gal with whom I spend most of my waking hours, sharing meal after meal (after meal) and binge watching Gilmore Girls while snuggled on the sofa, that the length of a football field might be a tad excessive “social distance” from her mama…