“For thirty years, the muezzin has not called the adhan without my already being in the mosque.”

Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyib (d. 94 AH / 713 CE) was the most learned of the Successors of Madinah and the son-in-law of Abu Hurayrah. Abu Nu‘aym gives this with its chain through Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and just before it a report in which Sa‘id says he had not missed a prayer in congregation in forty years. The word that matters is “already”: he was not arriving in time for the adhan — the adhan was arriving to find him there.