I’ve run since I was a teenager; it started as a way to get in shape for upcoming field hockey preseason before freshman year (and it was a struggle), but over the years it morphed into a full-blown hobby and then an indispensable part of my daily routine. I love the physical aspect of it – there is no greater high for me than cruising down a trail at sunrise or sunset, feeling the inertia of downward motion against a rainbow sky. While most runs are ordinary and blur together, the ones that truly stand out are the ones where other people are involved, either pounding ground as competitors, sliding alongside as companions, or yelling on the sidelines as bystanders. I love my introvert time, and there are certainly days that call for quiet solitude and space to let my brain wander and process, but there are also times where I need to make an introvert sport extroverted… and those are the ones I remember.

Sometimes that’s with people I know or who are acquaintances, and we’ve been brought together informally or in a group because on that day and at that time, we have a shared purpose. Runs turn into slow to medium-paced jogs where we waffle from talking about the superficial to the deep, and I get so immersed in conversation that I forget I am moving. I relished my Sunday morning runs in the dark with one of my Arizona best friends as a way to keep up despite shifting most of my workout energy to the gym, not just for the physical activity of it, but for the social outlet with someone connected but also disconnected from my day-to-day parenting and work life, similarly to how I savored my morning runs in San Francisco and Tahoe with friends I’d met through the communities there. My running relationships started as offhand conversations (“we should run together!”) that, over miles of fluid feet and conversation, morphed into deeper things. In all cases, they required some element of putting myself out there and breaking my shyness barrier, but they were fueled by knowing there was at least some common ground to start with, and it was always surprising how easy it was to go from there.

And although most social runs were planned, it’s the spontaneous encounters that can be even more fun. Once in San Francisco, I was frolicking (quite literally) on Mt Sutro after work, and I stopped to take a photo. As I started to run again, two men rounded the corner, and I can’t remember why they engaged me, but for some reason at that moment, instead of choosing fear, I assessed that they (a somewhat unlikely pair of a slightly older man and a guy roughly my age) were friends and not foes. In what was probably a lapse of judgment, I started running with them instead of away, and as we quickly realized we had overlapping Strava communities (because honestly, the SF running community is incestuous and small) what ended up transpiring was a 10-mile adventure up Twin Peaks and through Golden Gate park, racing through hidden singletracks as it turned to golden hour. It ended, we followed each other on Strava that night, and then never saw each other again… and yet, it remains in my mental library as one of my top running moments. In hindsight, it’s good I didn’t get murdered, but it’s also served as a reminder to myself that stepping out of my comfort zone and opening my mouth can have positive consequences.

I’ve yet to find a true North Carolina running friend, but our house is 0.2 miles from a trailhead that spits you out either two miles in two directions toward another trailhead or the reservoir’s network of trails, and while I sometimes pass people particularly if I turn right, there is one gentleman in particular who appears to be on my same schedule. On a regular cadence (it seems to be almost every day given the infrequency that I am out there and the frequency that I see him), he walks, hiking poles in hand and pack on back, from somewhere on the right, past my trailhead, to somewhere on the left, and then turns around and treks back. He’s not a usual suspect – I’d put him as a near-80-year-old Santa look-alike – but as the year has gone by, our encounters have turned from waves to greetings to short quips to conversations, where now when I see him, I stop and we walk together, and I learn more and more about him. It’s to the point now where even though I see him and my instant flight response kicks in, as soon as we start talking, he becomes another running acquaintance turning friend who I look forward to flying by. 

It’s again a reminder to take the chance and choose to be outgoing over reclusive, and that while it takes time to cultivate new relationships in new places, the people are there. I’m seeing it at the gym and at the kids’ school, and with my Raleigh friends, and in many ways, it’s remarkable that after a short year here, I’ve developed enough of a network where we are almost too busy. At some point, I’ll stumble upon some other like-minded individual who wants to explore the trails with me at 7am; in the meantime, I’ll keep putting myself out there and seeing what happens.