She carried a flashlight, so I could spot the goal-setter a mile down the road. It was my neighbor, Nancy, another walker in the suburbs, though a more regular one. It was well before dawn but she was already pounding the pavement.

About 12 years ago Nancy started fast-walking in earnest. She started, she said, because she had to use it or lose it. She keeps going for the same reason.

I caught her late one afternoon on her second walk of the day and asked her why she was out again. “I was two miles short of my goal,” she said. “Twenty miles a week.”

We talked some more, about routes and roads, suburban stuff, but all the while I’m thinking about goals. Setting them, keeping them, how they work to keep us young. How goals of distance are more weighty and tangible than goals of time. Twenty miles a week is a thousand miles a year. That’s from here to Kentucky and back. It’s a lot of miles to walk, a big goal to keep.

I don’t keep track of my miles. Maybe I should.