Running in Circles

Anthony flew back late Friday night from Charleston, after an exhausting week with his brothers of organizing their parents' house and affairs, purging, spreading his father's ashes, meeting with lawyers, going through bills, etc. The week before he left, he spent in bed, alternately shivering and sweating with a horrible feverish virus. So, naturally, jet-lagged and without training in over 3 weeks, he spends Sun morning running in a half marathon. It starts on the eastern side of the city, at the Chateau de Vincennes, weaves through the woods, then comes into the city, right past our little island, and back out to Vincennes.

We are standing there waiting to see Anthony run by our house -- at approximately the half-way point.  While we are waiting we see some women, a few chefs with pots or trays of drinks, and even this one very old guy who looks like he may not make it all the way to the finish line.

I start getting a bit worried when I see the old guy beating Anthony. But it turns out that Anthony has, in fact, passed by earlier, but somehow missed seeing us, and we somehow missed seeing him. I have two possible theories for this.

1) It is a sea of white men with slight builds and brown/gray, slightly thinning hair, between the ages of 25-50.

Or, Anthony's preferred theory: 2) We can't see him run by, because he runs by SO FAST.

His time is 1:49, for 20km (13.1 miles), and he's pretty pleased with it. Yet he does keep mentioning Laurent, a co-worker of his whose time is 1:30. But Laurent is 10 or more years younger, is a serious runner, and is not jet-lagged out of his mind. At least, that's what Anthony keeps repeating...  Just remember this, Anthony: The girls and I are jet-lagged also, and our major activity for the day is to walk to the end of the bridge just outside our house and see you run by. Which we can't, because you are just a blur!