meeting somebody and then meeting them again

we start as a group of people. we finish as a group of friends. ~unknown

A funny thing happened on my run this morning. Actually, two funny things happened. I should qualify this with the acknowledgement that my idea of funny may not match everyone else’s, and I'm cool with that so read on at your own risk. Anyway, I have 16 and 14 miles on the schedule this weekend, and since I am subbing a couple of classes on Sunday, I decided to run today and tomorrow. Because Matt is out of town, I had to take the wee one to school, so my plan was to run two laps at Bluff with my new friend Nic, dash over to take the boy to school, and then meet Wendy (my other running partner) back at Bluff for another two laps.

Quick, but relevant story detour: Wendy and I have done two trail runs together, both of which were rainy. It’s our version of washing the car to ensure things will get wet. This is also a fact I shared with Nic on the first round of running.

So of course, as I’m driving back to the trails, the sky opens up and as I enjoy a giggle over the irony, I begin to say a silent thank you for having trail shoes with good tread. In case you didn’t catch it, that’s funny thing number one.

I shot Nic the following text (don’t worry…I was at a redlight): “Thanks for the run! Wendy and I are headed back to the trail...hence the rain.” To which he replied, “You're welcome! Ha ha, that's so funny I'm about to drop the kids off and go back out there myself. I love running in this shit. How long are y'all going to be out there? I will just run in the opposite direction on the trail and run into you guys if that's cool.” I love a good muddy run, and the more people you can share it with, the more I love it. So Wendy and I are there within minutes, and we hurry into the trails, because while it doesn’t get much better than running in the rain, standing around in the rain really sort of blows…. in most cases. As is normal for us, we take off, our mouths moving as fast as our feet, and we were a third of the way through the first loop before I remembered that Nic was joining us.

Me: “Oh shit! That guy Nic was coming back to the trail after dropping his kids off. He’s going to run the ‘wrong’ direction until he runs into us, okay?”
Wendy: “Cool. What does he look like?”
Me: “Hmm… that’s a damn good question. I’ve never seen him in the daylight and I always run behind him, so I only know his calves. This could be a problem unless he is, for some reason, literally running backward.”
Wendy (laughing, because, of course): “Well, I guess we’ll worry about it later.”
Me: “Yes, but fuck! I should know this. We’ve been running together for weeks now.” funny thing number two

So another ten-ish minutes go by, and along comes someone running toward us. Out of habit, I offer a smile and a “good morning,” to which the runner replies, “Um, Adi…” Of course. I’m so shit at this sort of thing! This interacting like a normal person with actual normal people in society…. “Oh! Nic! Sorry, I couldn’t see your calves, so I wasn’t sure it was you. This is Wendy. She’s the one that makes it rain. Wendy, this appears to be Nic.” Geez…

I have no real reason for sharing this, other than my own amusement, but it was a nice reminder of how open and kind trail runners are. The introduction of Nic and Wendy (and sort of myself) took less than 60 seconds before we fell in line with each other to finish out the run.