Finding a Friend in Random Places

I won't lie. This is not my first time training for a marathon. It is the first time I am training in a group setting. This is also the first time I am fundraising for a cause. And the first time I am excited about running in SF. Up the hills, down the hills, and by the bay. E40, a Bay Area rapper, couldn't have said that previous line better. :)

When I started training for the San Diego Rock n' Roll marathon, I inspired a friend to start training for her first marathon--the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC. Now, she inspires me. Mel and I became friends in the most randomest ways: via apartment hunting.

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Back in sweltering summer of 2003, I decided that I needed to move out of Maryland and into DC to get the real city life experience. Apartment hunting in any city is tough. But add humidity, a tight market, and limited budget and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. One day, I saw a Craigslist posting for an apartment in Dupont Circle. It sounded amazing (red flag) and relatively cheap for a relatively expensive area (another red flag).

After some (dis)orientation after getting out of the Metro, I found the apartment building. I opened the doors and a cool wind chilled my body which reinvigorated me. I jumped into the elevator, pressed "7" and a few other people trickled in. No one pressed any other floor. "Great," I thought, "possibly my new neighbors."

We all exited on the seventh floor and everyone made a right turn. And then I noticed. Several people were hanging out near the end of the hall. I pushed my way through thinking that the apartment open house was another apartment. Of course, it was not. I took one look at the apartment where people were up against the walls, filling out their lease applications.

Disappointed, I left. A smaller group formed near the elevator and we all laughed at how expensive that disgustingly small apartment was going for. We got to the ground level and went in different directions.

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A few days later, on a Sunday, I made a list of apartment openings. I started in Adams Morgan, National Zoo area, and then Cleveland Park. Each apartment had such hopes on paper that in reality never had full potential. I often likened this to online dating.

On my last apartment viewing of the day, the Craiglist posting said to be there by 3:00PM. I showed up and saw that a few other people hanging out in the front of a building that looked like a retirement home. Rather a dilapidated senior citizen building. I asked one of the guys who were hanging around if they were waiting for the apartment open house. They were. One of the people looked familiar. She looked at me, and I looked at her, and we asked at the same time, "Were you at another apartment open house?" And that started our friendship. The building owner met us all and showed us the open apartments. All of them were terrible and in the stair well which we took to each floor, there was a HUGE roach. HUGE.

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That night, we went to Starbucks and laughed about our "luck" with finding a great apartment. We bonded over our dislike for DC because it wasn't the West Coast (she is from Washington). We talked about everything under the sun. And as soon as we walked in different directions, I knew I had another friend in DC.

A few weeks later, she found an apartment and then got me an apartment in the same complex. Although our schedules never matched up, we tried to make an effort to see each other once a month, or at the very least, once every two months. We shared a desire to run and explore. And we balanced each other out.

Over the years, we have inspired each other in different ways. She has inspired me to treat myself more. She questioned why I didn't spend money on me, but on other things. She gives self-lessly, from clothes to CDs to furniture to her time. She has a deep appreciation for me time and us time, which I really look up to and try to emulate. And, the best part of Mel, is that she finds humour in her life. She laughs to the point of when tears trickle down her face (can you see why I love her so?) and she makes me laugh too much.

She trained for her first marathon in 2005. Ever since then, Mel has not stopped running. She runs and/or cross trains most days of the week. As a runner, nothing more encourages me to run then to see friends run or share their running stories.

In August 2006, after half a decade in DC, Mel ventured back to the good old West to plant roots in Portland, Oregon. The cool thing about Mel is that her friends know me as an urban legend. The party jeans urban legend. Those and other memories keep me running every single mile this week.