Instant Friendship

Tina Gies gives amazing massages. She’s tough. She knows how to hurt, and she knows how to tackle body parts that are misbehaving.

Not surprisingly, she works with lots of runners. And being a chatty, social soul, she gets to know the people she works on. One of them, Chris Reynolds, mentioned that she had a close super-runner friend coming to town who was temporarily sidelined with a nagging hip issue and she was looking for a way to show her a good time.

Tina thought that it might be fun for Chris, her friend Bev and I to get together. She figured we’d have plenty to talk about, and she was right.

That’s how there came to be a knock on my door this morning and two fit and charming ladies appeared bearing a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

It was instant connection. We talked about running and races and people we knew in common. We talked about our families. I learned about their careers as runners and coaches and how the running gene had filtered down to their children.  We chattered on like old friends. I neglected to offer them even a drink of water. We were too busy talking.

Bev Dockerty was on her way back to St. Paul, Minnesota that afternoon, so our time was short. We managed a whole lot of getting to know each other in a single hour. I decided that having a passion in common paves the way for instant friendship.

Here’s a photo of Chris on the left, and Bev, in my front yard. May they soon return!