I'm a Timex

I'm a Timex. Nothing fancy or newfangled. Nothing too impressive, but to those that run, those that don't throw money at watches, those that know, just right. If I won the lottery, I'd still wear a Timex and drive a simple pick up truck.

I started wearing Timex watches after I trained for and ran my first marathon with a normal watch. I've been in love with a Swiss Army Watch, have had some decent enough timepieces, still actually prefer a standard clock face to digital, but can't justify anything else. I beat watches to pieces. I don't take my watch off to shower, swim, run, dig in the garden, I don't like to have to think about it, to remember where I left it. So it stays on.

I'm not sure how many Timexes I have had. Always the Ironman, so I can have simple elapsed time for my runs, and multiple alarms set for getting up in the morning. And it doesn't seem to shy from brackish bay and river water.

My Timexes have run marathons, ultra marathons, trails, and hiked the White Mountains. They've played football and gone paddleboarding and hugged toilets after "spirited" nights. They have picked steamed blue crabs and cooked gumbo and jambalaya and cleaned fish and cannonballed off of speeding boats.

It's funny what you notice when you have one, or who else you notice wearing them. The Coast Guard admirals I have worked with/for, the runners, the ones in the best shape, all wear Timex Ironman watches. Not fancy watches and not Garmin. Just the simple go-to.

A Timex feels like an old pick up, with a dent or two, so that you don't mind or think about anything that happens to it, you are curious what it can take. And if it meets its match, even if it has been through it all with you, its spirit gets reincarnated into the next Timex.

My Timex is just a part of my arm, an extension of myself that I put on and don't think about until I need it. They are not for everyone. I am sure they would look out of place in a Range Rover, Jag, or Cadillac. But so would I.