The Right Thing: Spine CAR Variety: And Cormac McCarthy On Luck

Working out is nothing more than an everyday activity upon which other activities emerge — a bedrock behavior.

Hill-ridden country roads aren’t particularly conducive to Sunday jogs.

And yet there he was, the only other human I’ve seen run the hills near my home besides myself.

“Nice set-up,” he said, stopping just outside my garage.

I thanked him, asked him his name — we’ll call him Bill — and we talked for a minute about fitness — me between deadlifts, him between hills. He was a middle-aged runner-type, tall but not thick, who seemed to enjoy the 97-degree temperature — or, at the very least, not hate it.

When the conversation shifted to training, he got that aliens-are-real look.

“That’s … amazing,” he said. Not because I’m impressive or my training is particularly unique, but because he couldn’t believe I’d kept it up for decades without fail.