Funny story.  I was out on an errand – driving in my car – and as I looked to the sidewalk, I saw this mop of hair swishing around, back and forth.  Now this was hair:  Full, voluptuous, boundless in its energy.  Motoring closer, I could see the runner was shirtless and was pacing at a pretty good clip.  About to pass, I took a look once again and noticed a supremely thick mustache, and that’s when I knew I had to photograph this guy.  I gunned the gas, missed my errand stop, and pulled ahead to give me time to try and capture a few images.

Full mane flowing, Todd paces out a trail up on a mountain ridge

Time has a funny way of speeding up when you’re in a hurry, and as I fumbled with my gear, he flew by.  Now this was a month or so back, and I had a cold, felt achy, was sporting jeans and flip flops.  Not the best of circumstances to catch up to a very in-shape runner, skirting construction workers building the new greenway downtown.

Mustache

Leaving the car windows down, I fled after my subject.  Dodging pissed-off pedestrians (must have been someone else who bumped them), yelling, “Cuidado!” to the workers ambling around, and a few winded blocks later, I stood at the corner with nothing to show for it.  I couldn’t believe I lost him!  I stared off down to the right, and something caught my eye. A pair of legs. Ah ha!  He was adjusting his shoes on a window sill, and hidden from view.

Five Fingers

With a lump in my stomach, I approached.  “What’s up man?  How you doing?” I asked.  I swear, without looking up, he just raised his fist for first contact. Fist Bump.  “Oh yeah…this is gonna be sweet,” I thought to myself.  “I couldn’t help notice you running.  You’ve got an amazing presence.  The hair, the mustache, and these – What are these?” I belted out.

“Oh, these are five-fingers.”  By now I felt a little serendipity going on.  I had wanted to photograph a runner for a while now.  The night before I had just watched a program demonstrating the benefits of running barefoot (Less injuries, less jarring, and stronger legs)  And the icing on the cake?  “What’s your name?” I asked hesitantly.  He replied, “Todd.”

The rest is history

Dammit - I gotta get in shape...

I have to give a big shout out to Todd for being so patient, and making this happen.  He’s a busy guy, helping build the architecture for Nutshell, a management system for social networking.  Along with weather delays and scheduling conflicts, it seemed like it would never happen, but we finally got it done.  And the funny thing is, I didn’t even get half the photos I was thinking about!  Sigh…  Of all the resources, it seems time is always the limiting factor.

See you down the road.

-Todd