20 years a runner

Give or take a day or two, today marked the 20th year anniversary of me being a runner, and on a special note, it also coincided with me returning to the very place that trek began - Charlotte Christian School - but this time not as an incoming freshmen beginning his first season of cross country, but as an assistant coach. 

I remember that first day at practice in 1998 in August pretty clearly. With basketball shoes, long basketball shorts, and a semi bowl hair cut I ran the same two warm up laps I ran today, 20 years later, and started the course of my life that would take me literally thousands of miles (and more to come) and began the bond of friendships that still last, as well as a love affair with running that for the most part has stayed true and matured over all those years. 

The same trails were traversed today as a 34 year old as they were as a 14 year old. The pace probably not much different either, or the duration, as today - while in better shape - I sought out and latched on to a group of freshmen runners who I tried to encourage and begin with my relationship as not only their coach, but as a fellow runner who wants to share my love and any wisdom I've picked up that may help them open their eyes and carry them along the way. 

It was only day one as a coach, with modest beginnings to whatever kind of coaching career may be in store, but it was nonetheless a very special and almost mystical symmetry to the first 20 years of  me being a runner...a label that I include with whatever else may go along with it, but one that I am proud of and love, and one that I hope to impart on those other fellow Knights off Sardis Road as we run those trails off McAlpine that have so many fond memories.