Prologue

Our story began on a hot July morning in 2011 at a ski slope in northern New Jersey. Yes… a ski slope in July. Why, you may ask? Well, of course running was involved and in this case it was a timed trail event at Mountain Creek hosted by NJ Trail Series called “Running With the Devil”… on account of the crazy heat. The event is essentially a 5k loop going up and down the slope and you repeat the process to complete as many loops as possible within a 3, 6, or 12 hour time period depending on your level masochism.

The curtain rises and we see our handsome hero nervously scanning a large group of scantily clad runners, until his eyes rest and set on our fair maiden…

Act I
I “met” Elaine for the first time at the pre-race briefing and kept checking her out from across the crowd. This cute little Filipina girl was always smiling, and buzzing around the crowd chatting to anyone and everyone. Little did I know that she is the nexus of the trail running world, always a connection within 3 degrees or less from virtually every trail runner on the planet… well maybe in the US, but definitely in New Jersey! The briefing is over and we’re off, 200 of us immediately climbing up the steep slope. I’m trying to get my heart and lungs to work together and settle down just as the burn begins in the calves. I’m not thinking of anything or anyone else until… half way through the first climb I find myself hiking right next to that cute little Filipina. It’s hot and humid already at 9am and everyone is too busy sucking wind to chat or exchange pleasantries. But not Elaine… “I love this!” she kept saying. “You’ve gotta be kidding me?” was what I was thinking. But she did love it, and was happy and chatty. I took the opportunity to say something clever and impressive, “It’s so humid” I said to her. Really?? Captain Obvious reporting for duty, sir! She replied something along the lines of “Yes, and this hill is crazy but I love it!” I noticed a photographer a short distance ahead of us and told Elaine that we should start running up the hill for the “action shot”. She agreed and we picked up the pace and the photographer snapped away and captured our first photo together before we even knew who the other person was, or what was to come in our unforeseen futures. After the photos, Elaine took off and I never saw her again. I finished a few loops and then headed home with some friends and talked about the race, the heat, and the hills. I hadn’t forgotten about Elaine, but I also wasn’t thinking about her in any other way than I had “met” a very cute girl that day.

Act II
The second time that I “met” Elaine was seven months later at another trail race hosted by NJ Trail Series. This time it was the Febapple Frozen 50 at South Mountain. This event has multiple distances ranging from 10 miles to 50 miles over a more typical NJ mountain trail with lots of rocks and roots! I loved the course and had a great time running 20 miles in the woods. There are many wonderful things about the subset of the trail running community but “The Hang” after trail races is one of my favorites. It’s an opportunity to talk about your race, talk about other races you did or ones that you’re planning, and always an opportunity to meet new people that share your passion for getting lost in the woods. It was at this post race hang when a friend of mine said, “Hey, there’s that girl from Running With the Devil.” “What girl?”, I asked. “That Asian girl who’s always jumping”, she said. “WHERE?!!!” I whirled around to see Elaine just a mere 100 feet away from me holding court with about 7 other runners. I REEEEEALLY wanted to go up to her and say hello, but the scene I played out in my head wasn’t that great… “Hi. I don’t know if you remember, but we hiked next to each other for about 5 minutes last July during Running With the Devil? My name is Tom.” Nope. Not gonna happen, especially not in front of seven other people that I also don’t know. I needed a better plan, a plan that required the use of modern technology and the world of social media. Some may call it “cyber stalking” but I like to view it as more of “intelligence gathering”. I mean, I still did not even know her name at this point so I had to be creative. Follow me on this… the day after the race I went to the race website to view photos and found a picture of Elaine. The picture has her bib number which then allowed me to check race results to get her name and her age. So far so good. Now it was off to everyone’s favorite social media site. Facebook. I searched Elaine Acosta, and there she was! Now I just had to click the little button that says “Add Friend” and my little Sherlock endeavor would be complete. But first, one small little change to my profile picture was needed, and this proved to be a crucial step for me. I changed my picture to one from the Febapple race, with my bib number. Smart, right?! Now I can hit “Add Friend” and all should be good. About a week later, after checking daily, she accepted the request. I sent her a quick message to thank her and to let her know that I had seen her at Febapple and that I hoped to see her at another race sometime soon. I also reminded her about our 5 minute hike at Running With the Devil. She sent a quick and brief reply about how she loved RWTD, and mentioned some other races that she was thinking about. My reply message mentioned that I was traveling to California in a few months with some friends to crew and pace the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run. Her subsequent reply was very excited and quite lengthy. From that point on we maintained a fast and furious exchange of email about a great many running related topics. During this exchange I suggested that she sign up for a local 20k race that my running club, Raritan Valley Road Runners, was involved in with regard to volunteering and race direction. She coolly considered it, and eventually confirmed that she was coming. Finally, we would “meet” for real!

Act III
The third time I met Elaine was at the Miles for Music 20k in mid-March, and we planned to find each other post-race near the registration area. Thankfully, we had no trouble finding each other and we shared a quick hello hug and started chatting about some of things that we had been emailing each other on Facebook. We took our first jumping photos together, and then I invited her to join the official post-race party at a local pub in New Brunswick, literally a 4 minute drive and 2 turns away from where stood at that very moment. Elaine was not grasping any of the simple directions I was trying to give her and I thought, “Great, she doesn’t like me and she’s pretending she doesn’t understand so that she can back out.” Ugh. She said that she wasn’t good with directions and that I should talk to her friend Yoshiko Jo, from Japan! What?!! How is your friend from Japan going to understand these directions any better than you?! I was sure that this was a futile effort on my part and that I would not see either of them at the pub, and would likely only see Elaine at some random race in the future. Hmmm, this could have gone better I thought. After cleaning up and completing my volunteer duties I went to the pub with friends from the club, and was excitedly surprised to see that Elaine was already there! Nice! We ping ponged between each other’s group of friends for a bit until I ran into a bit of trouble with a somewhat socially awkward situation. One of my club members was unknowingly sabotaging my attempts to speak with Elaine one on one, in a bit of a more private fashion, as he was just unaware of certain social cues and continued to monopolize the conversation with random and mundane chatter. Frustrated, I found myself in the men’s room talking with Bill “Baron” Hulbert about the situation, and he calmly assured me that he would be my “wing man” and would intervene when we returned to the group. True to his word, Baron swooped in with an arm around the shoulder of the unaware offender and diverted his attention long enough for me to actually have a meaningful discussion with this cute Filipina. She smiled, and knew what had just happened and was happy that we could finally be alone. Thanks Baron! After a while, it was time to go home so I offered to walk Elaine to her car… if she could remember where she parked it! I got her safely there, made plans to meet up again, and politely said goodbye. As I was walking away, I got up my nerve and spun ‘round to walk back to the car where she was still standing in the open door. I grabbed her and kissed her deeply, down to her toes. From that point on it’s been all 100 milers and jumping photos from around the world. We make an awesome team, we make each other laugh every day, and we even make a trip to the grocery store a fun event! It took us a while, but we eventually found each other to create this amazing partnership.

The curtain closes on our story on May 20th, 2017 when we declare to each other and shout to the world that our love for each other is quite an “ultra” special gift!

Look for our new amazing story that begins, oddly enough, on May 20th, 2017 as Ninja and Dragon partner up to explore new lands and tackle challenging adventures!

07/23/11 - RWTD

"The photographer snapped away and captured our first photo together before we even knew who the other person was..."

02/25/12 - Febapple

"I whirled around to see Elaine just a mere 100 feet away from me holding court with about 7 other runners..."

02/26/12 - Facebook

.."But first, one small little change to my profile picture was needed, and this proved to be a crucial step for me. I changed my picture to one from the Febapple race, with my bib number...."

03/11/12 - Miles for Music

"We took our first jumping photos together, and then I invited her to join the official post-race party at a local pub in New Brunswick...."

A Love Story in III Acts