My Valentine

It was the winter of discontent...snow upon snow. It seemed like it snowed every weekend and this Saturday was no different. I'd ventured out with two buddies. The snow might as well have been rain it was getting us so wet. Just as we got started we came up on 5 runners. They were all chatty and amazed that we could stay upright, on our bikes, with all the snow. I just wanted to keep on riding. Damn runners on the bike trail. Eric, he's much more friendly than me, and was enjoying the conversation. I just wanted to get as much of a ride in as I could before the trails were impassable. The runners asked if we'd take a picture of them, and I wound up getting handed the iphone. Congratulations were offered to each group, for being out on such an ungodly day, and we all went our separate ways. This was November 2010.

Around the end of March 2011 I'd met a woman on line, and we decided we wanted to meet, in person. Before we could meet, however, she needed to travel to Boston, for a week, so later in April we finally had what we thought was going to be our first, in person, glimpse of each other.
As we talked over dinner on our first meeting, I found out that her trip to Boston was brought about by her running the Boston Marathon. We discovered that even though our passions for running and cycling weren't exactly the same, there were two hours worth of similarities. At least that's how long we were able to talk about eating right, hydrating, tapering, and training in all types of weather. She asked if I rode year 'round, and then asked if I remembered coming across some runners on one of those snowy Saturdays and taking their picture. I told her I didn't. Despite my response, she seemed to think it was a pretty good chance that I was the cyclist who had taken a picture of her and her running mates back in November. I asked if it was two of us, thinking it was me and Amy out riding together. She said no, there were three of you, all guys. I was even more sure now that it wasn't me. I didn't remember riding with anybody but Amy on any of those snowy Saturdays.
We went out again and once again she tried to jog my memory, but it wouldn't budge. When I got home from our second date I called up Eric. I was starting to remember that he and Ben and I had slogged through some snow together, but I still didn't remember takin' any picture of any runners. I asked him, hey, do you remember riding together last winter, snowin' like crazy, and we stopped and talked with some runners and took a picture for them? Eric says, Oh yeah, sure, that was a blast. I asked, did I take the picture? He said, yep.
Well, this certainly was not a good way to start off dating someone...I mean admitting she was right, that is not a good precedent at all.
As it turns out, the woman second from the right in the picture I took, on that snowy November day, was Penny. I am a very lucky man because, she is my Valentine this year, and I hope will be for many years to come. Our Valentine's Day dinner tonight was at Barbette's the first place where we actually intended to meet each other. 20/15.5