47th ride

At Christmastime of 2009, I met an older man on the running track at Bally (subsequently acquired by, and renamed, LA Fitness). I remembered having seen him in the past, but had never made the effort to meet him. I introduced myself to him by showing him my card, and he told me his name was Len. The next day I took him a note with contact information, in case he wanted to email me, and I promptly heard from him, thus beginning a strong friendship. Leonard Gajda told me at the time that he was 72 years old, and had been running 6 miles a day for 25 years. He said that he had graduated from MIT and worked his entire career in various technical areas in Ford Motor Co starting as an analyst and ending in mid-level management ... "I retired in 1990 and have been living the good life since then."

Len still runs, but since I no longer do, today I made arrangements with him to ride over to his home in Ypsilanti for a visit. This was a very enjoyable ride on a gorgeous day, a 14.9-mile round trip that I did in a leisurely 1 hour 30 minutes.