Page 79 of You Met Me There

She has a smoky-eyeshadow look and black eyeliner that makes her light brown eyes pop.

“I trust you,” she chuckles. “You’d think with how much time I spend in front of a camera for my page that I’d be used to this.”

“What do you do when you have other photo shoots? I scanned through your page and saw you did one for Runner’s World not too long ago.”

Sarah smiles, shrugging a shoulder. “I pretend I’m not there. I guess it’s sort of like … zoning out.”

I nod. “That’s alright. Just do that. For most of the shots I take you won’t even be looking at the camera. I’ll start by having you lean against that tree.”

Sarah crosses her arms and leans back, and I walk around from different angles taking photos with different settings. Then I take some shots of her walking away from the camera while she looks back over her shoulder. I try a few different angles, and in each picture she looks amazing. The sun shines through the branches, marking the path with shadows, and her black dress is a total power move. She’s like a badass black panther in sneakers.

When I’ve taken as many as I need here, we hike our way between the trees to the river. There’s no path down here, so we bushwhack our own trail.

Sarah came prepared with a whole other outfit. Near the water’s edge, she tugs off her dress, revealing lemon-yellow running shorts and a matching sports bra underneath. She tosses the dress to the ground, and I pose her more athletically by the water.

The first pose is an action shot of her pulling her hair back into a ponytail, while other poses showcase her in various stretches. It’s a fun session to say the least.

“I’m absolutely terrible at running,” I say as we wrap up.

She lifts her crumpled black dress from the leafy ground. “You can get better. It just takes a lot of practice. You have to get your heart used to it.”

“Used to what, exactly?”

“Expanding, pumping harder, the speed. But mostly, the disappointment.” She chuckles.

I lift a brow at her. “Is running that bad?”

“The running isn’t, but if you go into it expecting to be number one right away, you’ll be on a straight path to heartbreak.”

We walk back through the trees in search of the path. A gray squirrel watches us from an overhead branch, gnawing on a nut.

“That’s kind of sad,” I say, more to myself than to her.

She laughs. “I guess anything in life worth chasing is also bound to send a little disappointment our way now and again, though, huh?”

“Yeah.” I try to laugh along, but the statement falls too heavy. Too real.

She catches the far-off look in my eye before I manage to mask it. “Are you okay?” she asks.

I smile broadly, trying to prove everything is great—and failing. “Yeah. Everything is good. I was just thinking about what you said. It’s really true, isn’t it? That even good things can bring sadness?”

She watches the side of my face as we walk side by side along the paved path leading back to our cars.

When I look at her, she turns away. “I didn’t win the first few races I ran. Actually”—she laughs—“I didn’t win the first fifty.”

I frown in disbelief. “Really?”

Her head shakes, the copper in her hair reflecting the sunlight. “Running is really hard. I love it—I always have—but it’s certainly not an activity laced with instant gratification. I almost gave up once. Many times, actually.”

I stare wide-eyed. She’s tall, probably over six feet. I have to lengthen my stride to keep up with hers.

“Why didn’t you?” If running is so hard and she wasn’t doing well for so long, I want to know what kept her going, why she didn’t just quit and find something easier to love.

“Because I knew it was good for me to stick it out. I knew in my bones I was a runner. I can’t say how—I just knew. And I couldn’t let the hard times get me down. I worked too hard and had so much fun running over the years that I didn’t want to throw that all away. Running is sort of like being in a relationship in that way.” She snickers. “It takes a lot of hard work, but it’s worth it.” She looks over at me. We’re almost to the spot where we parked—just a wide shoulder on the side of a winding back road.

“But hey, if you want some running tips,” she adds, “I can give you a call and talk you through some things. I love sharing tricks of the trade.”

I give her a wide genuine smile. “That would actually be great! Thank you. My husband is much more of a runner than I am, but I’d like to do better at running with him. Short runs,” I add. “Very, very short runs to start with.”