May 1, 2026
“Split time…23 minutes and 22 seconds.”
The cheerful girl in my earbuds seemed much too eager to volunteer information. As if, were she to wait a moment longer, she might miss her chance.
I was blissfully enjoying what I thought was a “brisk” morning walk, listening to my Audible Book, a sea yarn about Captain Cook’s third and final voyage to the Pacific, cramming for this week’s Book Club meeting, imagining what it must have been like to wade ashore on Kauai in 1777 when…
“SPLIT TIME…23 MINUTES AND 22 SECONDS.”
“I heard you the first time,” I thought, pausing to catch my breath, staring up the trail, past the fence line to the sun rising above the tule fog in the southeast.
At first, it didn’t register. What she said. The electronic girl in my ear. I was so annoyed by her timing that I didn’t catch her meaning. Then it dawned on me.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
“TWENTY-THREE MINUTES…?
TO WALK…?
ONE MILE?
JUST ONE MILE, ROB.
That can’t be right.
Hell, back in the day I could knock off three miles in under 18 minutes. And that was barefoot. In the rain.
No. It’s true. I could. I did. In Vallejo.
Really.
I have proof.
This is an article from the Sports section of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat from October 19, 1972. I found it online yesterday. See the headline?
“Upset by Viking In Cross Country”
Pretty cool, huh?
What’s that? Is it about me?
Oh hell no. Not me. I didn’t upset anyone.
You see, in the early 70’s, this town where I now walk so slowly, was the home of the mighty Petaluma High cross-country team. Those guys were a long-distance jogger-naut that ran over anyone in their way. They were led by two guys: Jon Sisler who ran like his name sounded. And Dan Aldridge who would, a few years later, run a 3:58 mile. (The World’s Record at the time was 3:48.8) We’re talking world class runners.
I know. I watched them.
Well…I caught a glimpse of them.
At the starting line.
Back in the day, scoring a cross-country race was not technologically sophisticated. No electronic clock. No spreadsheets. Just a stopwatch and some tongue depressors.
As you crossed the finish line, you were handed a tongue depressor with a number on it. The numbers on the little wooden sticks were added and the team with the lowest total won.
In the race reported in the paper, Petaluma’s top 5 finished 2, 3, 6, 7 and 9 for a total of 27. Their fastest guy covered three miles in 15:54; their slowest guy finished at 16:58. That’s what you call a tight bunch. All of their runners finished within a minute of each other.
Just a minute.
Montgomery?
Well, our ace Steve Ricker, a skinny little kid who kicked himself in the ass with every stride he took, came in first. He’s the guy in the headline. The Viking who upset the vaunted purple people eating stampede of Petaluma High.
But our “bunch?
We weren’t so much a bunch as we were a string. A strung-out string. A very long, very thin, very strung out, string.
That’s on account of our No. 3 runner. It’s all there in the fine print.
Petaluma’s No. 3 finished 6th. Napa’s No. 3 finished 10th. Our No. 3 finished…
Uhhhh…20th.
Over a minute after the other No. 3’s.
That may not seem like a long time. But in track and field, a minute is a very long time.
I know.
How do I know this?
Well…
In the Spring of my sophomore year…about six months before the Press Democrat article… I thought I’d try out for the track team. Since my vertical leap was 4”, and I couldn’t do a pull-up, and I couldn’t sprint or even lift, let alone put, the shot, I decided I needed an event to showcase my natural gift to run exceedingly slow.
The two-mile race.
Not a glamor event. I’ll give you that. It’s a tedious 8 lap race that usually goes on in the background while spectators focus on the far more entertaining high jump, long jump, or pole vault. Maybe the shot put or discus. The kind of events that get you on a Wheaties box.
The two-mile race is not entertaining. Well, not normally.
You know how, at the end of the race, they put out a tape for the winner to break. Usually, arms outstretched wide, gasping for breath, eyes bugging out like a crazed animal. Think Roger Bannister breaking the 4-minute mile record.
You get the picture.
Okay, park that Bannister thought. We’ll come back to it.
Now, let’s do some math.
If… the two mile race is 8 laps long, and…
If… there are guys like the Sizzler and Fleet Feet Aldridge who were capable of stringing together mile splits of 4 ½ minutes, in a race with a guy who, on his best day with a tailwind, might maintain 6-minute splits, and…
If… a typical lap for the Petaluma boys was…let’s say 75 seconds…and the typical lap for the slow Monty guy was…let’s say 100 seconds…
Then… with each lap the fast guys are putting 15 seconds more between them and the slow Monty guy…
Sooooo, about the time the Petaluma boys are rounding the last turn, igniting their after burners, ready to go full-on wide-eyed Bannister, sprinting for the finish line…well…
That’s about the same time the slow Monty guy is just starting his last lap.
Now let’s go back to that finish line tape thing. You probably see where I’m going with this.
Funny thing, actually.
It turns out the only thing…I mean the only thing… that might possibly disrupt the rapt attention of spectators in the stands…the ones riveted by the drama of the long jump, high jump, triple jump and pole vault… and prompt them to re-focus on the two mile race, was what must have been the …comic?…maybe tragic?…let’s just say laughable image of the slow Monty guy coming to a jog-in-place stop in front of the tape trying to decide if he should duck under or run around it, while nervously glancing back to see Petaluma’s answer to War Admiral and Seabiscuit bearing down on him.
I was lapped.
For all the world to see.
I was lapped.
That’s the importance of a minute.
Coach Held used to tell me that whenever he looked out across Spring Lake to see a line of runners crossing the top of the dam, he could always pick me out. From a mile away he could tell where I was in the race.
How?
I bounced.
Helpful hint to you joggers out there. There are two ways to go faster. Whether you’re a runner, a jogger or, like me, a slow walker. Just two. You can quicken your pace or you can lengthen your stride.
Simple physics, actually. Energy exerted up and down is energy lost propelling you forward. In short, bouncing does not help.
Nowadays, I try to get two walks in each day. One at dawn and one at dusk. They take about 45 minutes. I still bounce. I still try for a negative split. And, though I’m not proud of it, I still try to overtake another old fart in the distance.
My route is such that I often pass by a lone tree in a farmer’s field. It stands by itself, neither defiant of nor acquiescent to the passage of time. It just watches. It stands and watches as the rest of the world…a stream, a flight of geese, or an old man on a walk…for no good earthly reason still hurry to be somewhere… anywhere…other than the moment in time in which they now find themselves.
I like to think the tree is laughing.
The universal response these days, when you ask about someone you’ve not seen in a while, someone past 70, is to hear,
“He’s slowing down.”
It’s a kind way to describe aging.
But the trouble with this slow deceleration is we don’t see it in ourselves. Unless you pass by a mirror, or see yourself in a photograph, or are reminded by a voice in your earbuds, we seem as fast as we ever were. We bounce along oblivious to the fact that our splits will never be negative again.
“It’s been a minute.”
I hear that more and more, especially when I encounter an old acquaintance who, like me, is “slowing down.”
I suppose the phrase is a nifty shorthand for “My oh my, how time flies.” But to me the phrase does not do justice to the mystery and the grandeur of a minute.
I know minutes. I have lived minutes.
I know what a minute is. I know how long a minute can be. And I know, that no matter how slow you walk or run, no matter how high you bounce, no matter how little you slow your pace or how much you shorten your stride…
A minute, though it may sometimes seem to last forever, is never long enough.
Can't Hold Still 