Two great things I saw today at the annual Albuquerque Turkey 5k.

The first was a teenage girl, obviously quite fast, no doubt on her high school cross country team, dawdling with her dad. He kept told her to go ahead, that he didn’t want to slow her down, but she just smiled and hung back with him.

The other was another pair, dad and teenage son. At the starting line, I saw them winding a tether around their hands, and I realized the kid was blind. They ran together, obviously had done this a million times, smoothly and easily, and they were fast. They kicked my butt.

I ran pretty fast for an old guy, 24:48, faster than I’ve run it in five years. This is my 11th turkey run, and the little chart I keep of all my races is a healthy record of my gentle physical decline into middle age.