And so it begins...

Just as I'm about to dig into a hearty breakfast burrito for brunch, my friend TDK strolled in to the restaurant in his usual running and/or biking gear. It was a rainy-ish, cold-ish day, and TDK looked elated.

"I just won my first 5k race!"

"SWEET!" I answered and we high-fived, of course.

After chatting about the race for a bit, I said, "I always loved the idea of being a runner, but I was always a sprinting guy, not a running guy."

"Well, there's a coach here in town who coaches Masters sprinters."

"Oh...?"

Now, let's be clear. I haven't sprinted since I was 15 or 16. And then, I was cut from the sprinting group and sent to do pole vault, partly because of my gymnastics background and partly because all the other sprinters in high school became 6'2", while I stayed put at about 5'5" on a tall day.

And, once I started doing gymnastics full time, my running career ended.

Once, during college, when I was late for a class, I went whipping by a couple of guys on the football team who later caught up with me and said, "You're pretty fast. If you've got good hands, you should come play ball."

They spent the next hour extolling the virtues and thrills of catching a good pass and running it into the endzone... but never mentioned words like "hurt", "pain" or "broken."

I passed.

But since I turned 30 (15+ years ago) and stopped tumbling thanks to a torn meniscus (note to self: when doing somersaults, don't land and twist at the same time), I've been looking for something to do that my body enjoys and can actually do.

So, I took the name of this coach, finished my burrito (delicious, btw) and headed home.