A few days back, while exchanging birthday greetings, Anastassia and I had agreed that she will help me finish my 100th mile for the month the next Saturday (which is today). That put some extra pressure on me to finish enough number of miles before that.

I had finished three and a half this morning when she showed up. And I was grateful that she did. She kept her word in spite of a sick kid at home. I needed another three and a half. She had us do four! It was a great feeling to finish the 100th mile with a teammate from a previous job. We had run a few times together but the last run was nearly two years back.

I was asking her a few questions – while running in the trail – about the recent tennis singles championship she won (in case you wanted to know, she was pacing us so hard that I was content with only asking small questions in short bursts and let her give all the answers thereby not betraying how hard of breathing I was getting trying to keep pace with her 🙂 ) when we heard somebody yell out my name.

I knew that voice. Sure enough it was Peter and his family running in the trail. Peter was a customer of mine long time back in Virginia. Then he and I worked in the same company for some time. And actually, Anastassia and he still does! Anyways, it was an extra gift to meet Peter’s family on my 100th mile of this month!!

Our traditional coffee together had to be skipped since Anastassia had to run back to take the kid to the doctor. And for me now, I am not going to even touch any running shoes till Mar 1st rolls in 🙂

In the evening after finishing up this week’s work, decided to go put in a few extra miles. Changed clothes in the trail bathroom and went in for the run. Somewhere in my second mile or so, I lifted by head and I thought I recognized the face of the runner who just passed me by the other way. Was it not Scott? I thought. Looked back but the runner kept on running.

For a few minutes, my mind meandered to thoughts about Scott. I had not seen for a long time. We used to work together. In fact, I wondered if he ever got my birthday wishes. It was his birthday a few days back and I had left a voice mail for him on his mobile phone. Made a mental note that I needed to shoot him an email to ensure that his phone number had not changed.

And that was that.

A few miles later, I turned around and was still a couple of miles away from my origin point, when I took a turn and ran into the same guy. This time, I was absolutely sure!! “Scott?”. “Rajib!”… We chatted for some time and I turned back again. We decided to run together to where he had kept his car and then he would drive me to where I had parked my car. In the meanwhile, we caught up on our lives.

After taking our mandatory picture together, I let him go. He was getting late in taking his parents out for dinner. Apparently, he takes his parents out for dinner almost every week. What a nice person!!