Met a woman, how to contact her without seeming stalker-ish

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Okay so this is a bit of a convoluted story, but I could use your help and advice so I'll try to make it short and clear.

I'm a competitive road racer, and several weeks ago while out running I met a woman whom we'll call "Jessica." We'd both finished our respective workouts, and got to chatting a bit. She was very nice and curious about my training, and I hers, and we discovered we were both training for the same road race event, which comprised two races. I was doing the 10K, and she the half marathon, which is roughly twice as long.

We exchanged first names, but not much beyond that. It just didn't come up organically in the convo for me to ask for a number or her second name. However, she did make a point of mentioning during our chat that she was single, which I took to be an interesting tidbit for her drop. We both had to get on our way, but said we'd keep an eye out during the race for one another.

So fast forward to race day. It started off fine, but midway through my race it started to pour, and never let up! After I finished I was a freezing soaking mess, and there was no sign of the weather abating. It was going to be another two hours before she was finished with her race, and I just simply wasn't able to stay around that long being soaked to the bone, so I had to leave before I could see her.

So FINALLY getting to my problem. I looked up the results later in the day, and was able to search by name. I searched by "Jessica" and it turned out there were only three or four by that name who ran in the half marathon. And only one who was in the right age range; everyone else was younger or much older. And when I did a Facebook check, indeed I had found the right person. So I now know who she is and how to reach her.

But CAN I? Or rather, SHOULD I? On the one hand, I don't feel I went to unusual lengths to figure out who she was. It's not like I hired a PI to find her. It was a pretty simple, easy thing to find her. But nevertheless, is writing her now a nonstarter? Will I come off as stalkerish? Or no? Might she even appreciate it? I figured I could say I wanted to look her up to see how she raced, and wanted to congratulate her run. Maybe she might take it as a compliment that I was interested enough to try to find her?

And on the third hand, the odds are very slim that I'll bump into her again by chance while I'm out running. I may never see her again, so what do I have to lose by writing her? Worst case scenario I'm where I would've been had I done nothing, but best case it might yield positive results. So maybe the only thing at risk here is my sense of pride?

What do you all think? Should I give this a try?

I think a friend request on FB, possibly indicating how you know her would be ok. Plenty of people that send friend requests to people they don't know, so I think this should be safe.

Give it a try. You have nothing to lose. That she explicitly mentioned that she is single seems encouraging.

Hm, that's a tough one. I wouldn't contact her personally, but that's not to say that you shouldn't. If she isn't interested in you it probably will come across as creepy, but if she is then she will probably be happy that you contacted her.

I don't like to dip my toe into the waters here, but I just wanted to add another angle to the mix regarding her mention of being single.

While I obviously wasn't there and I have no idea if she did indeed mention that deliberately to let you know the way is clear -- perhaps she did -- I just want to say that sometimes people do say something without even intending the meaning it seems to have.

As a woman, I have frequently, throughout my life, blurted out stuff that I instantly regretted because I realized, either then or hours later while thinking about it, that what I said could have given the wrong impression. I am really bad at that kind of thing. I say inappropriately personal things about myself while completely forgetting that "conventional" social etiquette usually designates that information as having a definite "signal".

I'm just throwing it out there that the fact she said she was single might not have been intended to mean anything at all. I myself have found myself incorporating that into a conversation because some context or other seemed to invite it, and I NEVER meant for it to be a come-on or to indicate I'm open to dating. I've embarrassed myself a lot with social gaffes like this.

On the other hand, as I said before, maybe she totally meant it to be a hint; I don't know, I wasn't there.

I'm just saying, don't always assume someone might not have a bit of social awkwardness which isn't always glaringly obvious, and say things like this without the double meaning it carries for most people. As a woman I've done this and I could kick myself.

So, that was me digressing a little bit but --
About getting in touch -- well you might as well do the Facebook thing and make it seem like you wanted to know how her race went for her and sorry you didn't see here there. There's nothing to lose, it's true.

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Real life to FB never really worked in progressing things for me honestly, I donno why. It's the Real life to phone/texting or dating site to texting/real life or okc to fb that worked best.

There was that young lady who gave me her fb and even typed it on my phone, not only that but she showed interest signs in real life, like she was used to call me out by name (wih hand gesture) whenever she sees me so I come for a talk, but I rarely see her so I've decided to follow-up things thro fb, I've sent her a casual first msg like "Hi, long time no see", and she replied once with one word, then I sent another 2 msg how she is doing and stuff like that but went unanswered (and they were read). This is a deja vu scenario (happened few times), I probably look boring on fb or something like that.

I wouldn't use FB to chat with a potential partner, but if it was the only means of contact it would be ok to suggest some IRL contact through FB and to check for possible interest. If not for anything else, you could get friends with her on FB, which doesn't need to mean a lot as people befriend each others on FB without knowing each others at all.

Honestly, I say go for it. BUT, there's a formula to this kind of thing. Be tactful.

For one thing:

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