Running is my sport. Although my husband claims to be a running widow, I only log between fifteen and twenty-five miles a week. I won't say I love running, because some days I do not. Yet I do love the intimacy of running. On solitary runs I can talk to myself, without interruption. I investigate my feelings, work out problems, plan articles, or just concentrate on my breathing, on my being.

I recently moved to a new neighborhood and joined a running group, the Reston Runners. I found that running with others provides a type of intimacy not achievable in other social activities. When I run with the group, I connect with people on a level not otherwise possible. I do not connect with or come to know as intimately, people I meet under other circumstances, people that I have more in common with than my running friends. Runners are a diverse group. There are some stay-at home moms, like me. Still many are professionals from such diverse disciplines as teachers, lawyers, engineers, small businessmen, therapists, writers, executives. The group even boasts an ambassador.

When we run, we talk about current events, about sex, and of course about food. Naturally, many of my co-runners run for the same reason I do, to support an eating habit. We tell jokes and laugh at each others' witticisms. When running, employment, education, or social status is not primary consideration for selection of running partners. Pace is the primary determinant. Other social interactions, parties, professional contacts, schools, do not allow a person to develop such a close personal relationship so quickly.

A couple of weeks ago I met a young man running. He was ten years younger and a much faster runner than I. Still, we teamed up because we both arrived late for the 12 mile run and neither of us knew the route. We ran and talked and talked. He told me about his job as an engineer for a local defense contractor and his parents (both doctors from Taiwan) and his two brothers. He discussed his relationship with his parents and his brothers. I described my life as a stay-at-home-mom for two small children.

After about two hours I knew a lot about him and he about me. We had discussed our lives and our families and exchanged intimate details of our lives. I realized later that we had asked each other questions that I cannot imagine asking or answering with a stranger under any other circumstances. For example, after I had discussed the joys and challenges of raising two small children he asked if my husband and I planned to have any more children. We are not thinking about it right now, because our second, a son, is such a handful. It was a natural question and flowed with our conversation, but I marveled later at the directness of his inquiry.

I was just as direct with him. After he had volunteered that he was currently living frugally to pay off debt, I asked how he had accumulated his debt. He had been sucked into a pyramid marketing scheme. Usually, I am embarrassed at such boldness, but on the run; it was natural. It had been clear after our in depth conversation that he did not have a personality that suggested he was interested in a fast life, flashy cars or clothes. He did not have the personality one normally associates with a gambler. Under any other circumstances, I probably would not have probed further. Still, something about running together, maybe the shared pain, or simply the time that it takes, makes intimacy more acceptable. If he thought my inquiries too bold, he did not say so.

Our run was enjoyable and intimate, I got to know this man on a deeper level than I could have at a cocktail party or other social gathering. Nothing creates bonds as well as twelve miles of trail stretching out before you.