“My mother ran for you”

There are many, obvious signs of aging. Forgetting things (happens a lot). Saying and writing incorrect things (happens with more frequency than I’d care to admit). Disappearing or graying (or both!) hair (I recently turned 57; this is OK). A creaky back joint that has curtailed jogging to a painful shuffle (I always suspected there might be an expiration date on my balky hip). And then, this: On Saturday, at the Siena cross country race up at the Crossings, an excited young lady bounds up to me. Are you the Marist coach, she asks? Yes, I am. The kid blurts out: “I think my mother ran for you!” I ask who that might be, she tells me, and I have an instant flashback, as this high school sophomore looks exactly like that long-ago Marist runner from the early/mid-1990s. This is my 31^st year coaching. This is bound to happen. Wow.