This morning, after completing Week 1, Day 1 of the Hundred Push Up Challenge*, I went for a quick run. I expected there to be nothing particularly noteworthy about this run – I did a typical route, just shy of 2 miles. Nothing spectacular.

Until…

I was running along a road that has a lot of store fronts – coffee shops, independent retailers, bakeries, small businesses, etc. I love running on this road because there are always people around and I find this pushes me to keep running (I don’t like to walk in front of people. I’ve got strange pride issues. I’m working on it.). Even though I pass people on this road all the time, and I always smile and nod, I rarely get any sort of response back.

Not today though. I passed by an adorable older gentleman – probably in his 50s or 60s – very healthy looking and dressed like he was going mall walking or taking his granddaughter on a picnic. He looked me square in the eyes with a big grin on his face, gave me a huge thumbs up and said “Go get ‘em!”.

I couldn’t help but feel reenergized by this. It’s SOOO rare in this neighborhood, it caught me off guard – but in a good way. It was really sweet of him to take the extra second to do that for me.

And then…

A block or two later, another elderly gentleman, who I believe works at one of the businesses on this street, looked directly at me as I ran passed and said “Keep up the good work!”. I couldn’t believe it! I was still thinking about the first guy and how unusual that was, and then here’s this second guy encouraging a stranger running by!

But that’s not all…

After turning off that road and back into a more residential area, I thought for sure that would be the end of my run-ins with incredibly nice elderly men for the morning. Not so! A THIRD old dude gave me a thumbs up like the first as I passed and said “Way to go!.

This was all so strange, I’m having a hard time describing the oddity. This is very atypical – I’ve never experienced this at all, except during a big road race, which this definitely wasn’t. In fact, there wasn’t another runner in sight this morning. They weren’t at all creepy either, and I was dressed very modestly, in case you were thinking something lewd was going on. They were all just very friendly, encouraging men, and they made my day. Each of them individually, and all of them as a group.

I’d buy them each a decaf coffee and a butterscotch candy if I only knew who they were.

*If you’re joining in on the 100 Consecutive Push Ups Challenge, don’t forget to do your push ups today! Feel the burn, baby!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Personal Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.