…this is a pet peeve of mine: few people acknowledge.
Maybe it’s a Jersey thing, but whenever I’m running on the canal through Princeton I encounter loads of runners, hikers, families, bicyclists, and I wave or nod at everyone.
Few individuals ever even acknowledge that a human being just recognized their existence.
About one in ten gives a smile or a wave, and that’s cool. But the others annoy me. Last Sunday I passed by two young Princeton kids who were clearly serious runners, and they ignored me. Five miles down the road I stopped for water and encountered them. We had an enjoyable chat about running, and they were nice guys…why did they totally ignore the kind gesture on the trail?
It’s a tough place to be social, I guess. Some people may be super focused on their running. Or they may already be chatting with their running partner and acknowledging everyone they pass may be too much of an interruption. I talk with people on the bike trail every now and then, but if I made a point to nod to everyone my head would fall off.
That is actually a reasonable explanation, though the concept of “The Zone” is as foreign to me as the concept of a “runner’s high”.
There aren’t so many people on that trail that one’s head would nod off–in 12 miles on Sunday I encountered a few dozen people…during a run that took around two hours. One nod every five or ten minutes.
And I’m not counting the folks who are talking to each other–I don’t even notice if they ignore me since they are clearly talking to each other.
But someone can definitely be into “The Zone” and focused on their exercise to the exclusion of other things. I’ll agree with that. Next time I’m out I’ll take that in consideration.
I used to love to run, I was skinny as a rail post with long legs and could fly. Without doing serious exercise, I kept in good shape by walking fast everywhere. I remember deciding to pick up running again when I was 35 after 10-year break, and decided to take it easy. So I only ran 8 km the first night.
Now two decades and 30 lbs later, my body doesn’t remember those days. I just started off in the gym and am on the exercise bike for a while so I can build up my muscles enough to pick up running again.
The humidity and temperature here in Taiwan is a killer and my dermatologist has ruled out outdoor exercise until winter. Even then it may be iffy.
But, I do need to get some regular aerobic exercise.
I highly suggest anyone getting into running and doing the C25K program (or any other program) to register for an actual 5k race. Having an actual deadline to work towards is beneficial, there are lots of cool and fun races to register for (here in Cleveland my favorite are the chili bowl run and the Christmas Story Run), and running a race is fun! So register and do it, even if you haven’t quite hit your 5k mark by race day, go and do the best you can anyways.
Oh, yes. Races are the reward for all the training run. For people like me, who never played organized sports in high school or college, races are the only times I get to hear a crowd cheering for me. It’s like crack for the ego.
I took my son with me to the Y because he wanted to shoot baskets while I got in a run on the indoor track. He zoomed off to the far end of the gym while I went upstairs to the track.
I looked down at my feet and saw…high top Chuck Taylors :smack:.
It seems that I had been so distracted with making sure he had his name written on his basketball that I didn’t even notice I grabbed the wrong pair of shoes.
4 miles in Chucks is not recommended (ouch).
