‘You eliminate one person, and the whole world changes’
Fred Ballinger, Youth

David J. Barenberg, in memoriam.

We met first on a track — thirty-six years ago. Both driven, David revisiting his miler days from university and I fresh from minor surgery and suffering the effects of being too long sidelined from running. We’d eyed each other carefully as we pounded out the 120 laps of this tiny, suspended surface above the Y’s gymnasium. Walkers and joggers came and went, were passed again and again, finally leaving just the two of us. Two points in opposition, neither gaining ground on the other, taking care not to lag. Competition and obsession: the key ingredients of a relationship that would bind us for many years to come — and defining our respective personalities. 10 Km. logged, we allowed a greeting, mutually cautious, mutually respectful.

It’s a rare event when one encounters a catalyst, mentor even, in early mid-life. By then, we are well into the entrenched, ‘old dog, no new tricks’ mode. Rarer still to be able to track the unfolding of a relationship and be blessed with the recognition of how it has shaped decisions, validated enthusiasms, pushed limits, and fostered achievements that might otherwise have been passed by, barely noticed, allowed to lapse. I was, by most accounts at 34, a ‘running vet’, modestly accomplished in a time when runners were seen as a peculiar lot. But stuck in a routine that had stagnated, ‘mailed in’ but stale. This was about to change on many fronts.

6:30 a.m., September 11, 1981. I parked in front of David’s house on Parklane at the agreed upon time, not a little uncertain about where this new relationship might lead. In that time, runners were solitary souls, meeting at races, but otherwise preferring their own company. David, as was his want, had ‘his route’, measured with precision (as much as the technology of the 1980’s would allow) and careful to include a mix of terrain. We toed the invisible ‘start / finish line’, started watches, and stopped talking. This was a training run — not a social event. We snaked our way thru’ Stratford, up the hills available to us, checking ‘splits’ — both encouraged that the novel idea of a running partner, even in these formative days, was working. 39:12. Finishing side by side. And close enough to a 10 Km. ‘personal best’ to confirm the hope.

The first of hundreds of such runs, that would see us ground and anchor each other thru’ all weather, injury — and the vagaries of personal and professional lives that would weave together and sustain us. That would discipline and push us mutually to individual goals. Always purposeful, never casual. Bad runs tolerated; good ones, target and intention met, logged with quiet satisfaction, never celebration. This was about improvement, not attainment. Commitment to a personal standard. The way David lived his life.

Thank you David