“You like angry music,” Flygirl told me as I bounced suggestions off her Friday over IM for my huge running mix.
Actually, for running, I like furious music. And this is going to be a furious mix. It is four-fifths finished … it is so good I may even bring it for the Scotland Run 10K next weekend.
Today involved more music-testing as I brought it with me for a triple-loop (18 miles) in Central Park.
It tested well.
Fourteen miles in, an attractive redhead pulls up from behind me. I pick up the pace a little bit, and we run together for awhile. As we crest Cat Hill, I pull off my headphones and turn to her. She does the same. “Thanks for pulling me up the hill,” I say.
“Sure.”
“How far are you going,” I ask.
“96th Street, on the West Side — so you’ll have to do the back [Harlem] hill with me,” she says. And puts her headphones back in.
Our legs move in sync as we move around the park, focused on our running, our music and keeping pace with each other. Veruca Salt and the redhead propel me quickly up Harlem Hill.
Volcano girls we really can’t be beat
Warm us up and watch us blow …
A million miles of running and I hit the wall
I bounce back and I run some more
As we reach the top we look at each other and smile in self-satisfaction. Then we put our heads down and run some more.
At West 96th I tell her I’m heading on to Columbus Circle. We shake hands and part ways. Final time: 2:36:18, or a 8:39 pace. But my last loop was 48:38, or a 8:04 pace, and I’m sure the segment I did with red was even faster.
Furious? …. or, as the girls sometimes say: FIERCE? You go boy!
I think you meant to post this on Craigslist’s Missed Connections… 🙂
Is it normal for strangers to run with each other for miles? And why was there no exchange of numbers or more?
I have in fact met a few people (guys and girls) running in the park. I met M., whom I dated about six weeks last fall, on a park run. This was just unusual in that there was so little said. But I figured if she wanted to chat, she wouldn’t have put her headphones back in!
Maybe I shouldn’t have described her as “attractive,” it perhaps gave you all the wrong idea. I didn’t see this as a missed romantic connection but a shared moment between runners…