Running partners for life

Eight years ago today I went for a run in Forest Park with a guy I'd never met.

We'd spoken on the phone (I in my childhood bedroom with the door closed and the lights off while my parents ate Chinese food in the next room) and chatted online after making contact on JDate. (Not until years later would I find out that he had done a search for women within one mile of his zip code under 5'4" whose profiles included the words "Mets" and "running" -- b'shert indeed). I was suspicious because he hadn't even set up his profile yet, and the two photos he sent me did not inspire confidence: In one of them he was posing goofily with a drunken Santa, and in the other he was leaning against a doorframe, unsmiling and looking really, really Russian.

But I, like Bethenny of The Real Housewives of New York City, was in a place of yes that year: yes to the career path with the Department of Education that would bring me back to New York City from Boston, where I'd just finished graduate school; yes to any guy on JDate who wanted to meet me in person. (I'd suffered through a memorable date at a bar in Cambridge during which I seriously considered slipping out while the guy was in the restroom, and yet I was still accepting all offers.)

I was surprised, and pleased, when he suggested we meet for the first time to go for a run. It was unseasonably warm for January, and I agonized over what to wear, finally settling for shorts over running tights to prevent him from getting too good a look at my behind. When we met in person, I was heartened: He was much, much cuter than his photos.

We ran at a similar pace, a good sign. He talked about being in the Army and I talked about some Army guys who'd run near me in a race, chanting cadence: "One mile, no sweat! Two miles, better yet!" Previous JDates had taught me not to prolong the first meeting, so when we reached the end of the park I was all, "Well, bye!" and he suggested a cooldown walk.

I think I stopped for a salt bagel after. I smiled all the way home. The following week I went out for sushi with another JDate guy (remember, yes to everyone). This one wore a gold Star of David chain and talked a lot about his mother. I'd been cautiously optimistic about the runner, but the sushi guy in comparison elevated him to new heights.

He was working full time and also going to school, and I think neither of us were phone people, so we communicated a lot through email. He'd write with quirky greetings ("Hola senorita") and suggest quirky outings, like the Beatles brunch at B.B. King's or outdoor swing dancing at Lincoln Center. He was an engineer, and he sort of wrote like one ("I guess that negates what I previously said"), but I found it charming.

Today, I text him probably 50 times a day about completely mundane things (Exhibit A: The last text I sent said, "So do you think we should start sending Eli to school in underwear?"), but when I want to overload on a huge dose of nostalgia I go back and read those early emails we sent to each other, which I archived instead of deleted on a hunch that they'd be meaningful someday.

"I was thinking, since we both seem to be morning people, do you want to meet a little earlier on Saturday?" I asked on January 10, 2007. "Sure thing," he wrote back.

Phil and I have gone on tons of memorable runs since January 13, 2007. We ran 10 miles in a downpour at the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia in 2009. Later that year, we ran Phil's first marathon two weeks after our wedding, with "JUST MARRIED" emblazoned on the backs of our shirts. Phil pulled me to a PR (by exactly one minute) in the Brooklyn half in 2011. Later that year, Phil ran a sub-2:00 half-marathon for the first time at a race in Central Park; I was so simultaneously impressed and jealous that I went out the next day to a women's-only race on Long Island and did the same thing. This past spring, we ran a 5K sponsored by the NYPD in Flushing-Meadows Corona Park while  "handcuffed" together, and we got a plaque for coming in third place. (Yes, there were only three handcuffed couples. I still have my plaque, though.)

Once, Phil met me in downtown Manhattan as I was finishing a 20-mile run and produced popsicles he'd packed for me in a cooler. Once we were supposed to meet friends at the Staten Island Botanical Garden and we decided to run to the ferry terminal instead of taking the subway. Once we set out in the dark on Martha's Vineyard to do a long run into the sunrise. It started pouring, but we didn't turn back.

When we got a dog, Ellie became our new running buddy. We let her run off leash in the trails of Forest Park and on the beach in Montauk. We brought her to a turkey trot on the boardwalk in Coney Island and overheard someone say, "If that dog beats me, I'll shoot myself." Phil shrugged apologetically. "Better get a gun out," he said. We brought her to another turkey trot on the boardwalk at Rockaway Beach, where she and Phil chased down a little boy's runaway dog and still managed to beat half the field.

When we became parents, the single best purchase we made was our jogging stroller. We ran with Eli through the woods at Wissahickon Valley Park in Pennsylvania and down the boardwalk at Coney Island. We don't get to run together as often as we used to, but Phil has always supported me as a runner: This summer, Phil and his mom drove Eli to the beach while I ran 12 miles to meet them there; this weekend, Phil drove Eli to gymnastics while I ran 5 miles to meet them there. When I took off into the 20-degree winds at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning, I couldn't have felt more elated.

Before I met Phil, I always ran alone. I wasn't sure if I'd like talking to someone on a run, or if our paces would be compatible, or if we'd have similar racing strategies. We've gone on runs where Phil was chatty and upbeat even as I wanted to die and also kill him for his cheeriness. We've gone on runs where I want to push the pace and Phil merely wants to cruise at what he calls his "top speed."

It's a giant metaphor for life, obviously. We don't always agree on the path (I still prefer Forest Park, he likes Flushing Meadows). But we're still traveling it together.

This fall, we are both supposed to run the NYC marathon. Phil likes to boast that he's not going to run it with me because he'll be going too fast, but we both know better. There is no one who can challenge me to run faster or love deeper. There's also no one else with enough room in his shorts pockets to carry all my GU energy chomps. There's no one else I'd rather run my life with. Happy runniversary.