meet my favorite running buddy

meet my friend amy. the picture above is us after running the san francisco marathon in july 1998. we had only met in person for the first time the day before at the expo and ended up running together the first 15 miles of the marathon. she just happens to be one of my favorite people to run with and how we met was a one in a million fluke of sorts. once again, this is the time period when i was working at st. anthony's wellness center in st. pete. one of our members had gone out for a run along the water and when he got back he told me about a runner he had just run into who told him she was also training for the san francisco marathon. i was shocked because out of about 4000 total runners who were signed up for this marathon, here was one right in my area. i had to meet her! i told this member whose name alludes me at the moment, that the next time he saw her running, to please get me her name and number and so he did. the marathon was about 2 weeks away at this point so training together was not going to happen, we were in taper mode but i called her and we compared notes and realized we probably ran about the same pace. we planned to meet up in san fran at the expo and hit it off. once we got back to the tampa bay area we continued to train together for a few more years. we did our first boston marathon together where amy kicked my butt but i was running with a stress fracture (thank goodness for lots of aleve). unfortunately, we don't get to run together as much but when we do, it's like old times and we have the best conversations while we run. no topic is off limits with amy. the picture below is from this morning, almost 12 years later and we are still running strong.

a running friend like amy doesn't come around often so i cherish our runs together even though they are few and far between. i'm excited because we will get to race together again on feb 28th at the tampa, gasparilla half marathon. maybe we'll do a marathon together again someday.

much love and peace out!