During an otherwise uneventful run...

So I started this blog and then almost immediately ignored it. Sorry about that! Here is where I should promise to be better about writing regularly – but that will probably just set me up for failure. So I’ll just do what I can do and hope someone out there reads it besides me!

Enough of that – I came here to share a funny/feel good running story from my run yesterday.

I leave the house about 7:30am hoping to beat the heat. It’s only about 75 or so degrees, but the humidity is up around 80%, which is really incompatible with breathing when you’re NOT running, and just a killer when you ARE running. So the plan is just to take it slow and walk if I need to. Around mile 1.5 I am really feeling gaspy – despite running straight through someone’s well-timed sprinklers – so it doesn’t help in the slightest when a little white-haired old lady whizzes by me on her cruising bike… this thing has a basket on the front for crying out loud! I push her out of my mind and tell myself just to concentrate on my run.

A half a mile later I make a turn and head toward the golf course. Up ahead I see the little old lady stopped at the side of the path. As I approach she flags me down, so I stop.

“Have you seen an old guy – my age – on a bike?” she asks me.

“No, I haven’t…” just then a sputtering white-haired guy piloting an identical cruising bike, basket and all, emerges from the same path I’d come from.

“Harold! There you are! I was getting worried.”

“God damn it, May! It’s f***ing HOT out here, and I’m out of water and you’re going too fast. I can’t keep up!”

I can’t stop myself from grinning as May says, “HAROLD!”

He sees me, blushes and says a little sheepishly, “Sorry about that, Young Lady. Good morning!”

“No worries – good morning to you too,” I say, “Can I see your water bottle?”

He looks a little confused, but hands it over. I had my amphipod hand-held water bottle still ¾ full of water, so I refill his bottle from mine. (I was pretty sure he’d have turned me down if I’d offered, so I just did it.) I hand it back to him and he thanks me. We chat a couple minutes and I turn to go. Though I’d turned down my music when I first stopped, I still had the earphones in my ears so maybe they thought I couldn’t hear the following exchange as I’m jogging away from them:

“See Harold? You meet nice people when you get out and exercise!”

“Yep, cute ones too…” Harold attempts a half-hearted whistle noise.

“Oh for christsake…” I can practically see her eyes rolling.

This little encounter cracked me up and made my day. And Harold? Don’t tell anyone, but I think you’re kind of cute yourself. Happy exercising!