JOGGER!

To satisfy any jogging urges I may have had back in the 1970s, the 6-mile Stanley Park seawall provided the best location for uninterrupted running bliss. Scenery wasn't bad either. But when time was in short supply (had to get to Squamish?) yet I still wanted some quick exercise, the nearby Langara golf course (with it's 1.8 mile perimeter sawdust track) would fill in as a reliable option. This is where I joined George one pleasant spring afternoon as he began a fitness program of his own.

To be brutally honest (yet modestly humble) this casual run with George wasn't really much of a test for me at the time, having spent the previous year training for, and finishing, the 26-mile Vancouver Marathon. So to entertain and challenge myself, I brought along my R10 movie camera. I would then sprint far ahead or far behind George in order to capture on film the unchanging pace he maintained around the track. The results below were found on my latest DVD transfer of super 8 film and probably haven't been seen at any point in the past by the man himself.

He's too old for this kind of nonsense nowadays, but I recall saying to him at the time that I sincerely hoped I'd be able to do what he was doing here when I reached his age. He was 12 years older than me back then - and remains as such today. That difference seemed like a thousand years into the future. Now I find it hard to believe that I'm nearly 20 years past what his age was on this day of filming.

It was all captured 30 years ago, and I think the two of us would probably find it painful to try and repeat it anytime soon.