The gentleman sped past me with ease. I just shuffled along in the trail probably posting around 11 min/mile. A little distance later, I noticed that he had stopped running and was walking. As I got closer to him, he started running again and then eventually stopped and started walking. This kept on going like the old rabbit and turtle story. I think he was doing the “walk-run” routine many long distancers do.

Finally, I caught up to him. He had seen me just as we had approached a fork. I slowed down to give him the first choice to make a turn (I was not sure which way he would go). He started talking to me. I had to take my Airpods out of my ears and ask him to repeat. I assumed he was looking for directions.

“You ran the Original Marathon?”, he asked. I looked down and realized that I was wearing the Athens Marathon shirt – one of the two running shirts I had saved during my minimalism drive.

“Yes sir, in 2015”

“I have run the Berlin, London and Paris. But never the Original one. How was it?”. He was speaking with a distinct British accent. And he was clearly at least a decade older than me. it was also clear he had run a lot of marathons.

We had a great time exchanging stories about marathons (his many versus my one) and even our families. He and his wife have been empty nesting for a long time and recently they have started looking for houses near where we have moved.

We exchanged our names (he is Harry) and promised to run in the trail together sometime!!!