It was dark, darker than I expected, and Billy was lost, or said he was. We were in his car, somewhere near the entrance to Forest Park, a tract of near-wilderness in Portland, Oregon, perfect for running or criminal activity. The locals say a man lived there for seven years, in a tent, before he was discovered. If a living person could go undetected, it could be pretty easy to hide a body.

"So," Billy said, "you're not nervous, going out to run before dawn with a complete stranger?"

"Not at all," I said, confidently. "Besides, how often do you read about a mass murderer getting arrested and the newspaper says his hobby was distance running?"

"Heh, heh," said Billy.

"So...um, while we're on the topic, you're not going to kill me, are you?"

"As a matter of fact," Billy said. "I've got Garrison Keillor in the trunk."

She Runs to Reclaim Her Identity After Assault.

I run with strangers all the time. If I'm traveling to a city where I don't know anyone to run with, I contact the local running club and see if there's a group training run that will fit my schedule. If not, I'll try contacting the running stores—once, when I was in Seattle, the clerk got tired of answering my questions about what group ran where and when and said, "Hey, I'll just run with you myself," and proceeded to give me a free tour of the city the next day.

Sometimes I get invitations from the local running club before I arrive in town to do my radio show, which is why I have a T-shirt from the Landrunners of Oklahoma City and a bag from the Running Club North of Fairbanks, Alaska, plus memories of fine runs through sculpted suburbs and arboreal forests.

In Lincoln, Nebraska, I accepted an out-of-the-blue e-mail invitation from Brian Wandzilak, a Lincoln native who had come back to town to coach track at a high school. We talked about motivating kids to move. In Austin, I ran with the station director of the local public radio station, Stewart Vanderwilt, whose singlet allowed me to see his fresh tattoo on his upper arm: the insignia of his son's combat company in Iraq.

So when I went to Portland, I shot off an e-mail to the So, Billy said, youre not nervous, going out to run before dawn with a complete stranger The Best Songs to Add to Your Playlist this Month:

Hello, my name is Peter Sagal, and I host a show for NPR and also do a column for Runner's World. I was wondering if anybody in your club might want to accompany me on a run through Forest Park tomorrow morning, Saturday, early...I'd love to do 15 to 20 miles, running from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. Many thanks.

I got an e-mail right back from the club president, and she promised to ask around. I felt pleased. Nevertheless it really wasn't until I hopped into Billy Strick's car in the Portland dark, and he asked me that question, that I wondered... how long would my luck last?

At the trailhead, Billy and I met two vague shadows, one tall and one short, that Billy introduced to me as Kevin Griffith, his college roommate, and Jennifer "Mac" McDonald, who had caught one of the e-mails bounding around the running club servers. Both seemed pleasant enough, for vague shadows.

We set off into the dark, with Kevin's headlamp lighting the way up the Leif Eriksson trail as if he were a tall, lanky Rudolph the Red-Nosed Runner. We talked mostly about running, as one does when running, and Billy, as it turns out, had been a prodigy; he was once the youngest runner to complete Beginner Running Gear, which he ran in at age 7. He had given up running for a while, then gotten back into it with a vengeance—he had just run a 2:29 marathon, and was hoping to better it next time. I realized, as we puffed along at eight minutes a mile, that not only was he being a gracious host, he was being indulgent.

Truth to tell, had I been murdered by Billy and his friends, I would have been really surprised. I will not say that all runners are entirely moral—former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is an enthusiastic runner—but I will say that all runners, while running, are good company. When everybody's wearing silly shorts and sweating and farting and smelling like mobile sachets of locker-room sweat, there's no room for pretense. People brag, but if they're bragging about running, they need to back it up, and if they're bragging about something other than running—well, who cares? No matter how much money they make or the awards they've won or the names they care to drop on the trail, it's still eight miles out and eight miles back, and by the end that's all the achievement that matters.

Mac and I talked about the program she works with, which trains homeless people to become runners. Eventually, she and Kevin announced they'd run far enough and were heading back to their cars. As the rising sun finally pierced through the thick foliage, I realized that Mac was actually very attractive, and I almost apologized to her for not having been self-conscious and awkward around her, as was her due. Instead, I waved goodbye, and my new friend Billy and I, vastly different but dressed alike and headed the same way for the same purpose, continued on into the brightening woods.

Peter Sagal is a 3:09 marathoner and the host of NPR's Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! For more, go to runnersworld.com/scholar.