Emily and I have been together since early 2018. People often ask how we met, and I usually chuckle and say, “it's a long story.” I've always wanted to document it for posterity, so here it is from my perspective.
-James ✍️
Our story began like many couples these days, on the internet 🌐. We initially met through an app. No, not through Tinder, Bumble, or Hinge. Not X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, or Snapchat either. I know Emily because of Strava 🏃♂️.
Strava is a popular fitness tracking app and social network for recording and sharing exercise activities like running, cycling, and swimming. The app uses GPS to track metrics like speed, distance, elevation, and your route. Many athletes use it to track training progress and share workouts with friends, combining self-tracking with social sharing to create a fitness community.
The key feature of Strava is the social aspect. When you upload a workout, it appears on your profile feed for friends and followers to see. You can join clubs and challenges, give kudos to others for their efforts, and comment on someone's activity. The platform fosters competition through segment leaderboards that rank times on specific sections of trails or streets where users compete for the "Crown" 👑 signifying the fastest recorded time.
I love going for crowns. I'm naturally competitive, so I enjoy securing a crown and knowing I ran a stretch of road faster than anyone has before. There's pride in holding the crown for popular roads or segments near where you live. It's like protecting your turf 💪.
One day in November 2017, I'm sitting at my desk at work when I get a notification 📱:
Nooo! 😱 You never want to lose a crown, but Anawanda is a big hill near my parents' house (where I was living at the time). I didn't hold many, and this was the closest thing to my home crown. Who is this Ian guy anyway, and what is he doing taking crowns in my neck of the woods?! I need to get this back ASAP 🏃♂️💨.
I already planned to run that night after work, so I decided to find my way to Anawanda and try to reclaim the crown...
Success! 🎉 I beat the time by a few seconds and got the crown back hours after it was taken. To send a message, in case this Ian fellow clicked into my run, I titled it “Ian, that's my hill” and included the album cover from Kanye West and Jay-Z's “Watch the Throne.” That should hold him off from trying for it again, knowing I mean business 😤.
About a month later, I find myself once again sitting at work when I get another peculiar notification on my phone 📱: “You have been tagged in an Instagram post from @mary_sagunyahoocom.” That's weird 🤔. I'm thinking it must be spam or something as I open Instagram. It's a picture of two people in paper crowns with the caption “We're all about the crowns in our family…..” Two accounts were tagged in the photo, myself and @ianandemilyspodcast.
I frantically click on the podcast profile and find the SoundCloud page for Ian & Emily's Podcast: “coworkers at a local running store who love to talk shoes, workouts, food, music and fun facts.” 🎙️
An episode with the Anawanda segment from Strava as the header image appears. Oh boy… Work goes out the window as I tear through my backpack for my headphones. I start listening to hear Ian talk about going for crowns on Strava, and his recent run where he got the Anawanda crown. He describes getting home satisfied with his new crown, making dinner, and sitting down on the couch only to get a notification that some kid “James Golebie” had taken back his newly acquired crown. Not only that, but this James guy had the audacity to call him out in the title of his run! 😅
It was surreal to hear two strangers saying my full name and discussing something I did a month ago. They hypothesized I'm some kid sitting around in my parents' basement waiting for crowns to be taken so I can reclaim them (which wasn't far off haha! 😂). It seemed playful and in good fun, so I wanted to let them know I was tuned in and listening. I commented “watch how you speak on my name,” a quote from the Drake album More Life, on their Anawanda episode Instagram post.
Another month went by with no new developments, just me sharing the story with friends and family over the holidays 🎄. January came, and I had MLK Day off. My parents were heading out for some errands, so I tagged along. The first stop was Fleet Feet, the local running store where Ian and Emily from the podcast work, because my dad needed new shoes 👟. As I entered the store, two people came walking out of the back room directly towards me. It was Ian and Emily. As they approached, Ian said, “Hey, how's it going?” to which I remarked, “Do you know who I am?” Emily immediately replied, "Yeah, you're James Golebie." 😲 We had a pleasant conversation, joked about the situation, and took a picture together. My dad got his shoes, and we went on our way.
They posted our picture on the podcast Instagram, which I thought would conclude this wild and unexpected experience. That cute girl from the running store had other ideas… 😊 That night I got a message from Emily on Instagram. We messaged back and forth the next day, my replies full of rap/hip-hop references which she found funny enough to suggest getting married the day after we met (little did we know! 💭).
We decided to have dinner that Thursday at Spoonwood Brewing 🍺. Emily told me she picked it since they were having a chicken and waffles special that night, but in reality she chose a brewery to make sure I was 21. You never know who you're meeting on the internet! We had an incredible time, talking for hours about anything and everything. I didn't want to assume anything, so I wasn't 100% sure if it was just two people getting dinner or if it was in fact a date. As the night concluded, Emily said it was the best date she'd ever been on, assuaging my fears that it might not be a date, and spawning our tradition of Thursday date nights that has continued to this day ❤️.
My battle with Ian over Anawanda went on for weeks as we traded the crown back and forth, pushing how fast we could climb the now infamous hill. The Thursday dates with Emily continued as our relationship grew and developed. My rivalry with Ian over Anawanda faded as we got faster, making it increasingly difficult to steal the crown. Some new challengers joined, unrelated to James vs. Ian, setting blistering times and leaving me in 2nd or 3rd place for a while. Finally, on January 18th, 2021, our three-year anniversary, I found the speed to reclaim the crown, and it's stayed with me since 👑.
On May 25th, 2024, Emily and I went out to breakfast in Castle Shannon. It was a beautiful morning, so we decided to take a walk afterward. We weren't far from my parents' house, so we decided to walk there and arranged a ride back. Emily wanted to take a steep brick road (the most direct route), but I complained that my injured foot was flaring up and that hill would aggravate it too much. I suggested we take the next street over which has a less intense grade, Anawanda Avenue 😉.
Once we made it to the top of the hill, I told Emily I needed a minute to catch my breath. As we stood there, she began to wonder how out of shape I had gotten from this foot injury. Truth be told, I wasn't really out of breath. I was thinking about how crazy it was that I decided to get the crown back that night after work, or that I used Strava at all. How improbable it was that Ian had a running podcast, and that his cohost's mom tagged me in an Instagram post. How fortunate it was that I went into Fleet Feet when they were working, and that Emily messaged me that night. So at the top of Anawanda, an unassuming residential street that by some miracle brought Emily and me together, I dropped to one knee 💍.
