Join The Club. Poem by Michael Walker

I once ran easily in the fast pack:
today I am struggling in the slow pack.
Other runners talk to one another as before,
as we cruise by a deepriver of no comment.
Plodding up hills, it's nearly down to a walk:
drifting downhill, I let gravity take over,
lengthening stride and really speeding up,
demurring at advice to stay even and slow down.
Today is like an old snapshot rediscovered
in black and white; not falling off the pace,
running along winding highways to the past;
roads where I ran in strung-out half-marathons
and sharpened up for athletic meets at the stadium.

-30 May,2015.