We inspire each other

Exercise by Emily Murray

For about half of my life I have jogged along the same 4ish routes, within the same 4ish hour time frame, almost every day. Only the venue has changed. I currently do that in Vallarta. For safety reasons I try to mix up the route a little, but if you’ve got a morning routine too, it’s a pretty good bet we’ll run into each other some time.

So I see the same people often, and we get to know each other even if we don’t “know” each other in the traditional sense of the word.

For example I’ve been high-fiving this one guy almost daily for quite a while now.

But until today I knew nothing about him apart from that we run into each other at approximately the same times each day, and we high-five whenever we see each other.

This morning he was starting his run as I was ending mine, and we high-fived, but instead of starting his run and going on his way, he walked with me for a bit.

His warm up, my cool down.

Come to find out, he started running because he saw me running. He told me he’d always wanted to be a runner but he never knew how to start. Then a few years back he noticed me… because I’m so slow 😀 and because I always wear the same thing :D… and he thought that maybe he could just wear whatever he had, and could start out slow too. So that’s what he did.

And when he’d see me in the morning, for him it would be this “HEY LADY WE’RE RUNNING WOO HOO!” kind of high-five, but to me he was just some guy high-fiving me, and he seemed harmless enough so I’d just say “have a good run!” and move on with my day.

He told me he was able to draw the inspiration he needed from me, and his new habit stuck. So that’s why we high-five… that’s why that’s our thing… but I didn’t know why it was our thing until just this morning.

We figured it’s been our thing for about 3 years now.

I desperately needed that inspiration reflected back at me today. <3

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