At 8:00 a.m on a Sunday morning, the streets are usually quieter than usual. Perfect time to walk the dog and let thoughts wander. It hardly registered with me that that the wooden street barriers lying near street corners indicated a race that morning. When a race is not on your competitive calendar, it hardly seems to exist.

A little after 8:15 a group of four runners when striding past as I was walking the dog and it suddenly registered with me that the race was started. The leaders were clipping along pretty well and I regretted not being able to see them up close to take their measure and speculate over my own chances against the current group of of hotshots, if I were in hotshot shape.

My dog and I ran a block to where two women were sitting eating muffins in the wan morning sunlight. It was slightly overcast with a light breeze from the south. There was a long gap between the leaders and the next group of runners, so my dog and I trotted across the street and joined the Fans sitting next to a STOP sign watching the race.

It seemed like a full minute until more runners came along. The two gals explained they were there to support several friends who were running the race. Not yet realizing the actual distance of the event, I asked if their friends were nervous or anything. “Ohhh, yeah,” the one woman smiled between bits of her blueberry muffin (which my dog was eagerly eyeing), “quite a bit so.”

The next wave of runners approached, accompanied by a few cyclists pedaling along beside them. ‘I wonder what is legal these days,’ I asked myself. ‘It’s nice they want to help, but what’s an unfair advantage?’

The waves of runners grew bigger. I asked the Fans if they were runners too. “We both walk and run,” they both said. “And we’re with the Mother’s Club so we know what this racing stuff is all about. We hold a 5K every spring.”

Indeed they do. The race attracts a thousand or more people each April.

The first women racers came by at that moment. Serious looking gals in their little shorts and tanks, eyes straight ahead, moving together in a pack of four.

Two other Fan Friends joined the watching party at that point. Both were dressed in athletic gear. “Don’t we look the part?” they said as they threw their hands in the air in greeting to their friends.

Both looked fit, but not razor fit. More like fit for health than fit for racing. So I steered the conversation toward that part of the spectrum. “Do you know there’s more women runners now than men?” I asked, wanting to hear their theories on the increasing trend of female participation in aerobic sports like running and cycling.

“Well, running’s about perfect,” said one of the new Fans, who told me she was a small animal veterinarian–because my dog was sniffing her out, checking her food. “Running’s cheap. It doesn’t take much equipment and you can do it on your own.”

One of the original Fans chimed in. “That hour by myself when I’m walking or running is just heaven. I never knew that could be so important.”

“Time away from the kids?” I asked.

“And everything,” she replied, rolling her eyes and tossing her head back to look at the sky.

At that point a runner carrying a Pace Group sign reading 1:30 went striding past. Then it finally registered with me that this was a half-marathon, not just a 5K. Again, it was early on a Sunday morning. Our neighborhood block party had been held the night before. My brain was a little foggy.

“What is that?” one of the Fans asked.

I explained the Pace Group phenomenon, that runners now banded together in pace groups to help them make their goals. The practice evolved over the last 15 years or so, I explained. There would be more to come. “Probably even one with 3:00 hours on it,” I said.

“That’s about what our friends are shooting for,” they agreed.

I explained that one point I got to serve as a race-day escort for a world-class marathoner named Bill Rodgers. A runner came up to our car and shouted in, “Bill, what advice do you have for a four-hour marathoner?”

Bill got genuinely wide-eyed, and replied, “You can run for four hours?”

That remains my theory to this day. There are women and men out there willing to do far more mileage running and on the bike that I really ever liked to do. Oh, sure, as a competitor I trained 100 miles weeks and these days regularly top 50-70 miles on my road bike. But I meet plenty of runners and cyclists without much natural running ability who hit those numbers with some frequency.

At one point Bill Rodgers called it “graceless striving.” Athletes who haven’t got a prayer of going fast, covering the distance any way they can. He later amended his observations to a more nuanced opinion about middle and back-of-the-packers, but the damage, as they say, was already out there. The elite often have little patience or understanding for those who aren’t so swift afoot or on the bike. The respective running and cycling communities are taking care of that through education, and time. Everyone counts, it should be known. No matter how fast or slow. Or how long you go.

Just then several half-marathoners went past wearing minimalist footwear. Both appeared to be mincing along. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” one of the Fans said out loud. “It doesn’t look comfortable at all. I hear podiatrists hate those foot shoes, or whatever you call them. Even those extra-flexible shoes aren’t that good for your feet,” she contended.

These are knowledgeable people, I said to myself. But I couldn’t help sharing a couple observations. “In college we raced barefoot,” I told them. “But that’s because we were crazy.” They all laughed.

More “barefoot” runners came past, looking as if they’d had the bottoms of their feet removed in comparison to all the other runners in the race. Is it good, this minimalist trend? Is the average human being blessed enough bio-mechanically to tolerate the joint torsion of pronation or supination, and the pound. Oh, God, the pounding taken by the feet and legs. Even efficient runners, mid-foot strikers and so-called CHI runners still must absorb the shock of force when running. The tend may or may not last. Minimalist runners may be a little too connected to the earth, it seems.

At about age 38, I found the need to wear orthotics. All those miles in high school, college and post-collegiate competition and training led to some increasingly complex bio-mechanical issues. Then age and a flattening foot plant set in as well. No amount of wishful thinking or barefoot running would change the fact that my feet no longer achieve a neutral plane at any stage during footplant or stride. My pedorthist showed me videotape, and the tape does not lie. So I trust the foot specialists.

Using orthotics and executing a daily routine of physical therapy exercises makes it possible to run healthily and reasonably fast. Last summer in a cross country meet sponsored by a local running club, I jumped in with no real prep and ran 21:00 flat for 3 miles. Won my age group. Finished 10th overall. Sure, my PR for that distance is 14:17. But that was at my physical peak. 7:00 is respectable. It feels like you’re running. That’s enough for me, and most of the runners I know as well.

As the 2:00 Pace Group sign came by I decided not to tell the Fans that my personal record at the half marathon distance is just over 1:10. I raced the HM distance six or eight times and never broke 1:10, a major goal. We all have our thresholds. Never broke 31:00 for 10K either. But had fun trying.

Finally the big packs of runners come along and people I knew in the race started to shout out greetings to me alongside the road. One was a former rival now trundling along with a stride that did not look good for him. “I wonder what’s wrong?” I muttered. Then you remember: Always something wrong in every race. An unwelcome surprise of some sort.

I waved to a former softball teammate running the race with his high-school daughter, a former student in my wife’s preschool. How the world circles around and around us. So many connections.

“Do you know everyone?” one of the fans asked.

Then I noticed the familiar face of a woman I knew that had once posed for Playboy. She still looked great in her early 40s and I thought, “She’s got the same challenges as every mom. Keeping weight off. Keeping tone up. Taking care of her kids.” Only in her case, her children require profound medical treatments to maintain normal lives, if that even describes all they’ve been through. Truly, if anyone in the race knew the real story of that runner (and it has been publicized) she would have been receiving applause from every corner just for being out there. Yet glamour is no guarantee from strife.

Saying goodbye to my newfound Fan friends, who had just seen their buddies pass by on scheduled pace, I trotted away with my dog and the little critter seemed to want to race the humans down the road. He took off and was tearing along, making me sprint to keep up, and glad I’d worn good running shoes instead of sandals.

Then we cut through the neighbor’s yard toward home and left the runners to tarry on. 50% of them men. 50% of them women it seemed. How things have changed, and gotten better in so many ways over the years. Many had waved at us and said thanks as we cheered them on. One even stopped to pet my dog Chuck, who gave the guy his best “i need luv” look and it worked. Then off went the runner. A little happier for the connection with another soul.

That’s what it’s all about, people. Male, female, dog, whatever. Finding our way to connections.