Chris and I met at our running group’s Saturday morning run. The first time I remember meeting Chris was early January 2016, right after I returned to Henderson after Christmas. We started chatting after the run and I felt a connection right away. We exchanged phone numbers, and then I headed off to do errands. Chris texted me a little later while I was at the REI garage sale and asked if I wanted to get dinner and go see a movie that evening. I texted back to say yes and asked what movie he was thinking of.
And then I didn’t hear back. At first I thought he was just busy and taking awhile to respond, but after a few hours I assumed that he had changed his mind about getting together. So I got busy with other things and tried to forget about it. The next weekend I didn’t go to LVR because I was starting an intense study schedule for the Professional Engineering licensing exam, and I actually didn’t go back to LVR until May, after I had taken the exam. I occasionally thought about the guy I had met at run group, and remember calling my friend Peggy and telling her how strange it was that he hadn’t replied to my text. But with the intense study schedule and projects at work, I had other things on my mind.
My parents came to visit me in early May, and I remember that the weather was terrible. We drove up to Mount Charleston hoping for some gorgeous views, but saw lots of rain and clouds instead. My mom and I went to run group that Saturday, but that weekend, Chris was running his first marathon, the Revel marathon at Mount Charleston. After that, I started going back to running group every week, but he was taking a few weeks off to recover from the marathon.
A few weeks later, I was partway through that Saturday’s route, feeling good and running with Bob, a friendly older guy in the run group, when Chris came cruising up behind us. He had started running early that day to get in a twelve miler, and was finishing the rest of his miles on the group route. He slowed up his pace and joined us. We chatted about his upcoming trip to Ireland and about how he was growing his beard so that he could stay in a castle and feel like an Irish king. I told him I liked the beard and that I thought he should keep it. Chris runs with a Garmin watch, and throughout the rest of the run he kept checking our pace and encouraging me, which would probably make most people feel good, except that I generally don’t like to know my pace during runs, used to rarely run with a watch or phone, and usually try to not think about running while I’m doing it. But something about him made the mild annoyance seem sweet instead of frustrating.
We finished out the run and started chatting afterwards around the Gatorade jug. That evening there was a going away party for another LVR member who was moving to Denver, and I asked Chris if he was going. He said probably not, but I told him he should go. That evening, he got to the party a little before me and later told me he was really worried I wouldn’t show up. I got there a little bit later bringing some Asian turkey meatballs. We were pretty much inseparable for the rest of the night, floating between the kitchen and the backyard, chatting about running, travel, work, and everything in between.
At one point, we were sitting with our feet dangling in the pool talking about races and Chris mentioned that he wanted to do the Running with the Devil half marathon in a couple weeks. I’d seen some info about the race and was remotely interested, although it started in the late morning in late June, typically the hottest time of year in Vegas. I was hesitant, but Chris was convincing and I told him I would at least do the 10K, and would consider the half marathon.
Later, we decided that standing around was getting boring, so we tried to convince some people to play board games, but quickly realized that we were the only two people there who were even remotely interested in playing.
Eventually it got kind of late and we were both tired of socializing, so we decided it was time to leave. Walking out together, it was obvious that even though we were tired, we didn’t want to say goodbye quite yet. So Chris suggested we head over to Downtown Summerlin for a drink. I followed him over there and we decided on Public School 702. We sat at a small table across from each other and the conversation got a little deeper and more personal. When we finished our drinks, we were both even more tired and knew it was time to head out, but the excitement of the evening with Chris stayed with me.