Jumper

Two weekends ago I finally got in a 16-miler that I’d failed to do the previous two weeks. (Missed the first week because of illness and didn’t finish on my second try because the weather was just so completely bad.) I was rusty, I took a handful of catch-my-breath breaks, but I got through it.

There was one prolonged break, but it wasn’t for any of the usual reasons. 12.5 miles in, I came across a guy who was threatening to jump off of the North Avenue foot bridge into the Lake Shore Drive traffic below.

The wind had picked up quite a bit as the sun dipped. The gusts were harsh as I started the climb up the east end of the foot bridge. I had to tuck my chin into my collar and pull my cap far down on my head to keep from losing it. My field of vision was limited to the patch of concrete at my feet. I didn’t see the jumper, or the woman who was trying to coax him back to the safe side of the railing, until I was passing them.

The guy was dressed in blue jeans and basketball shoes. He wore a silvery athletic jacket of some kind, like a windbreaker, with a team or product name on the back. He had on a ball cap and a bookbag type backpack. He was African-American, but light skinned, and his face was covered with the kind of freckles that you sometimes see on light-skinned black men.

He also had one leg on the foot bridge and the other on the opposite side of the rail, hanging out over Lake Shore Drive.

The woman who was talking to him was a runner. She was dressed in her black running clothes, a jacket and ¾ pants. Her long, dark hair was pulled up in a pony tail, and she was on the petite side – much smaller than the guy, who was 6’+ and maybe 210 lbs or more.

The truth of the situation didn’t sink in at first, because both of them were so calm. He wasn’t ranting. They weren’t arguing. There was no air of immediacy. They could have been any pair of tourists taking in the lake and the Chicago winter for the first time. My very first thought was that the guy was just posing for a crazy photo over Lake Shore Drive.

Ten paces past the pair of them, as the facts sunk in, I slowed to a crawl, reached up to turn off my iPod and tried to take a copious look around behind me – but without looking like I was trying to look.

I was relieved to see that the woman had already talked him all the way back onto the bridge and they were starting to move toward me down to the west side of the overpass. I kept walking that way myself while struggling to listen backwards at them to keep tabs on how things were going. What state of mind was the guy in? Was he drunk? Was he high? He didn’t seem violent, but what if that changed suddenly? He was so much bigger than she was; at least twice her body mass. If it came to any kind of physical altercation, she would really be at a disadvantage. Left on her own, verbal persuasion would be her only real defense.

All these thoughts and variables were running through my brain in the time it took me to stroll the 50 feet down to the hairpin turn near the end of the foot bridge. From there it was easy for me to look back up the ramp at them. He was behind her, but they were both still walking toward me, and by the time I got to the ground they were in the hairpin. I invented some business with my shoes and tried to hide under the ramp where I might hear what was going on.

After another 30 seconds, hearing nothing and seeing neither of them descend to the ground behind me, I peered back around the corner. He had apparently changed his mind. She was alone in the hairpin and he was walking with purpose back up to the middle of the bridge.

Damn. I’d thought she had him.

He had climbed completely over the rail and was standing on the outside of the little fence, his back to the drop, his heels dangling out over traffic.

In a moment, she resigned herself to it, and followed him back again. I did the same, but stopped when I got back to the hairpin. I was concerned about how much I should interfere. This woman had clearly established some connection, some influence over him. It’s possible that he wouldn’t react as well to me, a guy, trying to get in his business. What if it turned into a small crowd of lakefront joggers trying to cajole him into abandoning his little perch? Would he disapprove of our attentions?

At the same time, I didn’t feel like I could just leave. One of the two of them, the man or the woman, might still need some help in this little drama, and even if I was not the most ideal person to give that help, I was there, so me was what they got.

At this point, I saw another bystander 30 yards from the base of the footbridge. He was wearing a bright orange jacket, he was looking up at our would-be jumper, and he was on his cell phone. So, 911 was being alerted. And sure enough, when I looked back over to the east side of the bridge, a squad car had just parked along the lakefront bike path and a beat cop was walking up the bridge from the other side.

This is cynical of me, but there’s no reason for me to believe that a rank and file police officer assigned to patrol for mischief on the lakefront is any more equipped to talk a man off a ledge than I am (or, for that matter, this woman, who had, it seemed, been having a little luck with it already), but the blue boy did carry a gun, so I just waited in the hairpin where I was.

The woman, however, was completely undeterred, and now was talking as much to the cop as to the man on the ledge. The wind was blowing too strongly for me to hear their voices, but the sound of sirens was unmistakable. They were emerging from the innards of the city off to the southwest.

First a second squad car arrived, then a fire truck, then an ambulance, then another fire truck, then a third, now two more squad cars and another. A couple were over on the bike path near the foot of the bridge. Others had come up Lakeshore Drive from North Avenue and points below.

Less than five minutes after I noted the orange jacketed man on his cell phone, a half dozen city vehicles had shut down Lake Shore Drive – but only on the northbound lanes. Meanwhile, traffic was still whizzing by underneath in the southbound lanes, and that’s what the guy was actually standing over.

A handful of cops had made their way up onto the bridge. The woman was still with them, in the middle of things, and talking much more at the cops than at the man on the ledge. I don’t really think he wanted to jump, at least, not at this point, but there was still the very real possibility that he could simply fall. The drop itself wasn’t far enough to kill him (badly break his legs maybe), but dropping down into busy highway traffic would turn him to pulp for sure. The drivers below would also be at risk. Who knows what kind of car pile up might be caused?

Minutes passed and all those emergency vehicles just sat there passively in the northbound lanes, until, finally, one of the fire chiefs got his brain around it and sent a single police car up Lakeshore to Fullerton so it could come back down in the southern lanes and block the traffic there, too.

I did hear one thing from the middle of the scene. One cop in particular seems to have taken the lead and is talking at the guy, and the guy states forcefully back at him, “I’m NOT drunk!” A couple other runners trying to cross the bridge had stopped to watch the show, but after this outburst, the cops waved at them to move further off.

Finally, the situation seemed to crack a little, and the guy swings one leg back over the rail, and then, after a few more moments, comes the other. I half expected to see a rush of uniformed bodies swarm around him to be sure he didn’t go back over again, but instead just 2 of the cops pace over to him and restrain his arms. It has, more, the air of a brokered deal. I imagine he takes a charge of disturbing the peace or something similar and spends a night or two in jail, but I have no way to know for sure. It was, luckily, a bit anticlimactic.

A few days later, the next time I turned on my iPod, I realized what I was listening to as I first ran back up the bridge and into this scene, was a radio interview with Philippe Petit, the French tightrope walker, who in 1974 (illegally) strung a wire between the tops of the World Trade Center and spent an hour rope walking between the buildings, 110 stories in the air.

Once the cops had subdued our jumper, the woman who’d been there and remained from the start gave herself leave. She was heading toward the hairpin where I was still standing. “I thought you had him that first time,” I said to her.

“Yeah. He got scared when he saw the police coming, so he went back up.”

Kind of ironic. Not really the cops’ fault. And maybe he wasn’t really scared. Maybe he just wasn’t ready to throw it in and pass up the chance for more attention and a bigger hubbub on his behalf. Or maybe, in his delusion, he just felt like his strongest negotiating position was on the wrong side of the railing in the middle of the bridge. Who knows?

“Good for you for staying with him,” I told her, and she shrugged a little. Then she rounded the corner on the hairpin where she could finally get a good look at all the trucks, the flashing lights, and backed-up traffic on the Drive.

“Quite a ruckus, huh?” she said matter-of-factly as she passed by me. At the bottom of the ramp, she settled back into her jog, and headed home in the deepening night.

There was nothing else to do but follow her lead.

Peachtree's Not Postal Anymore

The Peachtree Road Race is held on the morning of July 4th every year in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s not only the world’s largest 10K, at 55,000 runners it is one of the largest footraces of any kind in the world.

For 39 years, the only way to gain entry was to fill out an application, printed every year in the Atlanta Sunday paper (the AJC) in March, and mail it in with a check for the entry fee. Slots were given on a first come, first serve basis. If your letter was one of the first 55,000 to arrive, you were in.

This year, for the 40th anniversary, things are different. For the first time ever, the race is conducting an online application process. They have finally embraced the 21st century. But honestly, I was skeptical of whether this would be a good thing.

I grew up in Atlanta, but ironically, I never ran the race while I lived there. I didn’t become a runner until after I moved to Chicago. But I’ve flown home every July 4th since 2004 to run the Peachtree. It’s a fun race to be a part of and a good excuse to visit Mom and Dad for a couple of days.

As archaic as the mail-in application might seem, I never had any trouble getting a slot. I would e-mail the needed documents to my parents in Atlanta, who would pick up a copy of the AJC when the early Sunday version came out on Saturday. Then they would drive up to the city, to the one Post Office in Atlanta that is open on Sunday, and put my application in the mail for me. (I could have done all that from Chicago, but I would have had to wait for the Atlanta Track Club (ATC) to send me the application in the mail and then send it back to them from Illinois, and I thought the extra time involved would put my entry at a disadvantage.)

The new online registration process opened this morning at 6 a.m. CST. I got up at 5:50 and fired up the computer. It was still a few minutes before 6 when I got to the AJC website, but the page told me that registration had already begun. I clicked “Register Now” and it linked me to the ATC site where I had to click a “Register Now” button yet again. Then I got the message:

"Thank you for your interest in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race 2009. We are currently experiencing higher than normal registration volume. Registration spots are still available. Please check back at [our website] soon."

Well, duh! Of COURSE there was higher than usual volume. Every runner and their brother in the city of Atlanta and beyond was trying to get into the world’s largest road race! Of course I was getting the web equivalent of a busy signal. The link sent me back to the AJC website where I had to go through that all over again.

I'd worried about this. The mail-in system was antiquated, maybe, but it was also more genteel. How long would I have to sit at the computer, cycling through the websites before I broke through and got to the actual application page?

As it turned out, 9 minutes. It took me a couple of minutes to fill out the form, then I clicked “submit”… and promptly received and error message. I forgot to click on “Yes” or “No” to the question of whether or not I wanted to willingly receive spam-mail about the race. I corrected my form and hit “submit” again… and this time I got a big fat error message – several, in fact, at the top of the page – not from my computer, but from the registration website. My application did not go through. There was a link to click to try it again… which sent me back to the “Register Now” page on the AJC website. NOT good. I had to start all over from scratch. It took me 10 more minutes of cycling through the “busy” signal to reach the application page again.

The second time went more smoothly and I was rewarded with one of the nice things about the new online system: instant confirmation that my entry had been accepted and I was in the race. Under the old system, the only notification of acceptance you got was the cancelled check from your entry fee some weeks after the process was over.

So that was it. A little bumpy. Slightly annoying to hit the “refresh” over and over again. But I didn’t have to enlist my parents and we didn’t have to wait weeks to discover it all worked out.

A quick check of the registration page at 7 a.m. CST, showed that entry slots were still available, and no more “Busy” signal from the website. There was a direct connection to the application. At a little before 8 a.m., It said that slots were still open, but the "busy" message was back.

The ATC promised that only the first 45,000 entrants would be accepted online. They will still take the final 10,000 by mail only, starting next week. It’ll be interesting to find out later how long it took for the 45,000 slots to fill. If it winds up taking a few hours to fill, then maybe next year I can risk sleeping in a little longer.

A Little Follow Up:
The AJC reported that all 45,000 slots were filled online by 1 p.m. CST. It took 7 hours for registration to close. They also reported that there were a number of problems similar to mine in the first 2 hours, which slowed things down. So the field might have filled even faster were it not for that. Anyone who didn't get in today still has a chance next week with the 10,000 mail-in slots.

Friends in Print

My April issue of Runner’s World was waiting for me when I checked the mailbox last night. That’s not normally blog worthy news, but as I took that customary first thumb through the articles, I found a familiar face staring back at me from the inner pages.

Abigail, the woman who I ran with for the last 12 miles of the Lookout Mountain 100K back in December, is featured in a big article that is the center-piece of the magazine’s “Weight-Loss Special”. Well, she isn’t the center-piece, but the article is, and her photo spreads across 2 pages. She’d mentioned while we ran (yeah, we walked a lot, too – that is, I walked and she was kind and stayed with me), that she had some friends who were trying to hook her up with the RW folks. I guess it happened. I hope they choose to do a whole article just on her sometime. She’s got a fascinating story. Nothing that’s out-of-bounds extraordinary (like, for example, the 9/11 firefighter they profiled last month who got hit by a bus and came back to run the NYC Marathon), but really interesting, nonetheless.

She was also on the contents page of the mag with a big, fishy friend. I know she told me her e-mail address before we all drove off the night of the race. I’m going to have to see if I remember it. I was pretty exhausted at the time. (It’s great, Abi! Totally cool!)

But Abi’s not the only acquaintance I’ve found in print lately. I ran a big chunk of the first half of Lookout Mountain with Lori. She told me on the run that she’d heard her picture had turned up in the new issue of TrailRunner. My copy came in a week or two after the race and there she was on page 49, in an article on the Dick Collins Firetrails 50-Miler. She was fretting that she didn’t look very good in the photo, but Lori, if you didn’t look good, they wouldn’t want you in print in their magazine! (By the way, you look good.)

Finally – though he is officially unidentified in the magazine – I caught this action photo of my Blog/Ultra buddy, Chris at the McNaughton Park 100 in Marathon & Beyond’s Nov./Dec. 2008 issue. It was good of Chris to feign being in such a state of need so that those volunteers would look so helpful.

I guess it’s possible there have been more people who I’ve run and talked with on the trails who have been immortalized in print the same way, but I don’t get to memorize every face. After all, most of those conversations take place with your eyes on the trail in front of you. I’m glad to have recognized these, though. It’s fun to see the people you’ve known get a little moment in the sun. And well deserved on all counts!

Vote! It's, like, Patriotic!

We're up to 21 votes on the Poll! Have you seen it? It's a little further down the sidebar on ye old blog here. 21! Woohoo! I know more votes are coming, too, because there's a few more of you out there that check in from time to time who've never run a race as long as a 5K. I happen to know that the solitary "Less Than 5K" vote came from my girlfriend (just trust me, I know), so there should, at least, be more of those votes coming, right?

So far, the 50K voters are totally in the lead. I'm pleased that there are also a couple of votes for over 100 miles. Back in December I had to bump my own vote up from 50 Miles to 100K, after I finished my first at the Lookout Mountain 100K, in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Which reminds me: I'm curious to know what event you were at when you ran your longest race (or the first event where you ran the distance). So if you're inclined, post a comment below and tell me the race and where it was (even if it was just the 100 meter dash in your 9th grade P.E. class).

Do tell, do tell!

The Ironman Returneth

Back in December, I wrote about the death of my Timex Ironman running watch. The timepiece itself was still in superb condition, but, after no extraordinary abuse, the resin-formed band had torn in half. Because the band is molded into the structure of the timepiece, it is not replaceable, and the watch becomes useless. It’s a problem I’ve now had with 2 different Timex watches, and it was no less frustrating the second time around.

However, Timex does offer a mail-in “repair” service. It couldn’t be replaced outright because I’d owned it for more than two years. (I forget if their warrantee is 6 or 12 months.) But for only $10, you can mail in your watch – this goes for any watch that Timex makes – and they will give you a new watchband and put it on the timepiece for you. A watch like my old Ironman falls into the “unrepairable” category, but in those cases they send you back a replacement model, or at least a model with similar capabilities.

In effect, you get a new watch for $10.

So, back on January 20th, I sent in my old watch along with a check for $10. Yesterday, five and a half weeks later, I got my new watch in the mail. The old watch model, apparently, is no longer in production. (It seems no Timex stays on the market more than a year.) What I got back isn’t quite as sleek as my old one, but it is identical in every functional way.

The only disappointment is the new watch also has a resin band. I called customer service beforehand and they told me that I could request a Velcro band. But I paid a lot of money for the old watch because of all the functions and features it had, so I was clear that getting something back that matched all those expensive features was more important. I guess they didn’t have anything available with a Velcro band. (Better for that to be true than my request ignored.)

All told – as disgruntled as I still am about the unreliable resin band – it is a nifty little service that Timex offers. I did get a new watch for just $10. I shouldn’t have had to buy a new watch at all, but since I did, better that it cost just $10 instead $100 to replace it.

Is It Over Yet?

…and by “it” I mean the bitter winter, and by “over” I mean the end of damp, 20 degree days with a 15 mph headwind.

I think I am, officially, completely demoralized by the winter weather. It just isn’t fun. I have survived previous winters. I remember last year wasn’t great, but this year has been downright unpleasant.

I went out late this afternoon to go for a 16-miler. Not many places to go for a full 16 here in the city, so I headed to the lakefront. I got out of the car and regretted it. The flags nearby were starched, being blown by a constant, driving wind. They didn’t droop at all, just rippled and shuddered, perpendicular to their poles.

So, which way to run? I was at the north end of the trail already. I’d planned to do 8 miles south, but that would send me back into the teeth of the wind for the second half. Could have maybe driven to the south end to do the reverse, but that would’ve taken me 20 or 30 minutes to drive down and try to find somewhere to park. I might have driven inland to the North Branch River Trail, but that, too, would’ve required a block of travel time, and that trail wouldn’t be lit after the sun went down in 45 minutes.

I was screwed.

I went back to the car, pulled on my balaclava, and seriously debated whether or not I was gonna make this run. Eventually, I allowed my hatred for the weather to be outweighed by my fear of becoming someone who ditches on their runs like a wimp – but I grabbed a twenty from my wallet so I could pay to get myself home a different way, if necessary.

I did okay the first 6 miles, but it was astonishing how slowly the time went by. It got worse when it got dark. Then I made the regrettable discovery that several long sections of the path were so iced over and torn up that they were basically unrunnable. The piece around the Drake Hotel Curve often falls victim to ice and snow because the lake washes up on the cement there so easily, but the section that runs a full mile north of the curve, all the way up to the little Chess Players Pavilion, was also coated in a thick sheet of ice. Everywhere, large chunks of pavement had been blown loose and strewn about. It kind of looked like the planet Hoth after the Empire had made its way into town. I've never seen it that bad through there before.

Then I got down to the Museum/Soldier Field Campus only to discover that a large section of the path is still closed for the repairs and construction that have been going on for months and months already. That was kind of the last straw. I was tired of the cold. I was tired of the wind. I was tired of the ice. I was tired of the detours. I’d done 8 miles and it felt like I’d been out there for 2 hours.

I walked over to the Field Museum, hailed a taxi and had him deliver me back to my car. I was a little annoyed that the trip cost me my whole $20 (with the tip), but at least it was all over.

I think I could handle the cold air if it wasn’t accompanied so often this season by the brutal, constant winds. And the ice – well, I want to be Brian Sell, not Brian Boitano.

I know I'm venting, but I think I’m ready for the real, actual Spring to arrive, now. Please?

Post Script:
It's now the morning following this post, and Old Man Winter has responded with 22 degrees, 17 mph wind gusts and an inch of fresh lake-effect snow blowing in from the Northeast. Ugh. Right back attcha, big guy! The forecast does promise temps in the 50s by Friday.

This'll Make Alex Trebek Proud

Okay: serious question. Really, I’m serious about this. I want to know. Because it’s a question of etiquette and procedure - and perhaps even metaphysics - that could be on a par with any other threat to the very fabric of the time/space continuum. I need to poll the running world at large (well, at least the four of your that occasionally read this blog). This post is partly inspired by today's post by my blog/ultra buddy, Chris, but it’s a topic that’s been floating around my brain for some time and continues to gurgle up to the surface. So…

How do you rank yourself in the standings of a race? Would you count your finish time among everyone else who finished? Or would you count yourself among everyone who started?

Don’t most race directors flip-flop between those two options? Haven’t you seen some race results list all the “Did Not Finish”s (and even the “Did Not Start”s), and others listing only the finishers? Haven’t you also seen results that even list the distance at which each DNF was recorded? How are we supposed to consider the “finish place” of ourselves and those DNFs?

I mean, if you are the last finisher of a race, then you finished in last place, right? Ah, but what if some of the runners who started the race took a DNF? Didn’t the guy who was the last finisher actually beat all the DNF’ers in the race? Doesn’t that mean that he didn’t actually finish in last place, since he “beat” some other folks who weren’t even able (for whatever noble reason) to finish at all?

If that’s the case, then what if you have a race where a number of people (at least, more than one) log a DNF? Does that mean they all get a “tie” for last place? But what if one person dropped out after 10 miles and another didn’t drop until after 30? Shouldn’t the 30 Mile Guy be “placed” ahead of the 10 Mile Guy? What if they both dropped after 30 miles, but the first guy got to 30 miles in 5 hours and the second guy didn’t get there until 8 hours? How should those guys be “placed”?

What if both guys dropped at 30 miles, and both guys got there in 6 hours, but one of them had a broken foot and the other one didn’t?

Is it just me, or are these questions unanswerable? And is it not possible to assume that any race with more than one DNF in it would become a race with no identifiable “Last Place” finisher? Does that mean we’re all "winners" if we ran that race, being that everyone of us would theoretically have "beaten" someone else?

Shall we not, then, offer a glorious “Thank You” to all the people who drop from a race, as they make all of us champions?

No? Yes?
Does any of this matter?
(What?)

No! Really! I’m serious!

Forecasting 2009

I’ve been having a hard time nailing down my running goals for 2009. I guess that should be obvious, since it’s practically March already and my “Upcoming Races” list at the top of the page still has little more than an 8K and a bunch of question marks.

There are excuses and actual reasons for that.

A big thing is that my work schedule for the year looks like it’s going to be very full. I’m self-employed and do a lot of short-term, freelance kind of work. Luckily, my calendar has filled up nicely for the year. I’m not getting rich or anything, but the income should be steady, and given the state of things in the world nowadays, I consider my self very fortunate to be able to say that.

But the job requires my physical, hands-on presence, and that means less free time to travel and run marathons and ultras. I’ve already had to cross the Clinton Lake 30, the McNaughton Park 50 (or 100), and the Georgia Marathon off my list for the year, just because of scheduling conflicts. Those are all races I’ve run and enjoyed the last couple of years.

The other big factor has been a general concern that I might have been burning myself out just a tad last year on all the long distance races. I had two bright spots last year with my finish times: I pushed through and broke 4 hours in the marathon for the first time in Madison, Wisconsin on Memorial Day; and I improved my time at the Farmdale 33-miler in October, even though I missed a turn and added a mile or so to my race. Other than that, however, my finish time in every other distance race I ran was markedly slower than in previous years. I just rarely felt like I was able to give a race my very best effort.

I did have a bit of illness and injury to deal with last year, and that affected my performance, especially in the first half of the year, but by December, I started to wonder if maybe I wasn’t just a little burned out. Scaling back in 2009 didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

But am I whimping out? Am I just going soft? Am I slacking off? I don’t know, maybe.

But I know this is true: I really think I have a 3:45 marathon in me somewhere. I’m turning 35 this summer, so, theoretically, I’ll only be getting slower from here on out. If I scale back the quantity of races, I run, and focus on the quality of just one or two of them, I can take a shot at clocking a flat, road marathon in something under 3:50. There’s a new marathon being hosted 45 miles away in Kenosha, Wisconsin in May and, of course, Chicago in October once again. Both are flat courses. Both are close enough to home that they wouldn’t interrupt my work schedule. And both races are five months apart.

However, I also haven’t given up this idea of finishing my first 100-mile. I know this is silly, but I really want me a shiny 100-mile finisher Belt Buckle Award to keep my pants up. The Burning River 100 is run between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio in early August. It’s only about 7 hours away, and I might be able to sneak away for that weekend, long enough to take a crack at it. Unlike my 2 marathons this year, I would go into it with NO time goals. I’d simply be aiming to make each aid station and the finish line before the cutoff times. We’ll see.

I haven’t even signed up for all of these races yet, but it seems like a good plan from where I’m sitting today. If I can clock a strong improvement in the marathon, and maybe bring home that 100-mile belt buckle, then when the year is done, I’ll be able to say I made the right decision.

The Moral Judgment of the Sidewalk Pedestrian

I’m going to muddle my genre a little today. And in honor of Peter King, I’ll place it under the heading of "Curious Things That May Interest Only Me" - As if this whole blog didn't fall into that catagory...
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I live in a city, and as such, I run in a city. There are excellent parks and paths where I often do my running, but inevitably, I find myself running in a risky and unpredictable locale: The Sidewalk.

Why are sidewalks risky? Why are they unpredictable? Why do they so often drive me to the point that I willfully choose to run in the street where two-ton constructs of plastic and steel come motoring ignorantly toward me? Why? Because on the sidewalk, there are other people.

Your mind may now be casting toward the most famous quote of a particular French existentialist and playwright, but mine has strayed, instead, to an even more esoteric historic figure…

Jean Piaget (pronounced: Pee-ah-jay, with a soft “j”) was a Swiss philosopher and natural scientist, well known for his work studying children and his theory of cognitive development. In 1932, he published “The Moral Judgment of the Child”, in which he studied the development of a child’s sense of what is “moral”, “just”, and “right”, in large part, by observing children as they played marbles together in a school yard. He considered it a natural environment when he could observe and interview his subjects even though they would not know they were being studied.

So, you see, I don't want to be a whiney-butt. I don't want to rant about the annoying habits of other people. They are, after all, people. And surely they mean well. Their point of view must be considered.

Luckily, it is my opinion that the encounter of Fitness Runner and Walker on a sidewalk provides a neutral environment for study, similar to the one Piaget took advantage of. I believe that the Walker tends to respond to the unexpected presence of a Runner in an honest and unedited way. I am, therefore, inspired by Piaget’s example as I try to briefly evaluate the moral behavior of the Side-Walker in relation to the Everyday Runner. (I may have forgotten a few of the basic rules of proper scientific evaluation – but that’s why I host a blog instead of a laboratory.)

Here goes…

SCENARIO ONE: One Runner, running toward one Walker, moving in opposite directions.

Observed Result: Though the common reaction of the walker is to move to their right, allowing the runner more room to pass, there are also occasion when the walker persists on the same forward trajectory, requiring the runner to swerve around as they pass.

Conclusions Drawn: The dynamics are, perhaps, affected not so much by spatial relationships as by social ones. Not unlike chickens in the hen coop, a pecking order is quickly and instinctively established. A walker who feels equal or inferior to the approaching runner may be likely to give way. Occasionally the walker may determine that they are, in some way, the superior, or perhaps they choose to challenge the runner to establish that superiority. These persons are less likely to give way.

SCENARIO TWO: One Runner, running toward two Walkers, each group moving in opposite directions.

Observed Result: The two Walkers will commonly remain shoulder to shoulder and side by side until the very last moment, even though they have both seen and made eye-contact with the approaching Runner, at which time, the Walker closest to the Runners path will, only briefly, pause and step slightly to the right and behind their walking partner, allowing the Runner to squeeze by. Sometimes neither Walker will give ground at all, forcing the Runner to come to a complete halt or swerve all the way around the duo.

Conclusions Drawn: This scenario is the more interesting to me, personally, because in these cases, the Walkers often seem less involved in the power relationship with the Runner and more so in the one between each other. For one person to slow down and be forced to fall in line behind their fellow is a sign of weakness or subservience. To be forced to be the one of the pair who must give ground to the oncoming Runner places them at the bottom of the three-person power structure, a position to be avoided. If however, each in the pairing holds their ground, it is the Runner who must correct course, leaving the Runner at the bottom of the structure and the walking pair on equal footing (no pun intended). So being rude to the Runner is selected as the most profitable course of action – the rudeness being instinctively seen as a far lesser evil than diminishing oneself in the eyes of a comrade.

SCENARIO THREE: One Runner and one or more Walkers, all moving in the same direction, with the Runner approaching from behind.

Observed Result: If the Runner attempts to be polite and calls ahead to say “excuse me” before he passes by, chaos results. The Walkers come to a full stop, try to turn about to see the source of the voice and spread out on the sidewalk, often forcing the runner to come to a complete stop to avoid running into them and, therefore, producing the opposite effect than he hoped to have by calling out in the first place.

Conclusions Drawn: When the Walkers sense or hear the Runner approaching from behind, the unexpected presence of the Runner will produce unexpected responses from the Walkers. Because it is a stimulus that the Walkers are unaccustomed to and unprepared for, they do not know how to react and their instinct will be to gather more information. Because all of a human’s primary sensory information receptors are on the front of our faces, this means the Walkers must stop and turn around. When a human turns their head while walking, it is also common for the body to drift in the direction of the turned head. And this random change in bodily trajectory often produces the collision which the Runner had hoped to avoid.

Instead, if the Runner approaches silently from behind, the Walkers ahead are far more likely to maintain a predictable forward motion, and the Runner is able to easily navigate around them on the sidewalk. This, occasionally, has the result of startling the Walkers, but only after he has already passed them by. Even though this emotional jolt is unpleasing to some Walkers, it is far gentler than the physical collision frequently caused otherwise. We will simply have to hope that the Universe understands our benevolence and rewards us accordingly.

SCENARIO FOUR: The Runner approaching the Dog Walker, from any direction or angle.

Observed Result: Neither the Dog or its Owner will see or acknowledge the approaching Runner in any way – that is, until the Runner is directly upon them, at which time the Dog will leap at the Runner (in violence or in joy) and the Runner must try not to be tripped or injured by the Dog or its leash. (There are, occasionally, Dog Owners who detect an oncoming Runner and will pull the Dog aside to allow the Runner safe passage. To each of these rare Dog Owners is due a heartfelt “Thank You” from the Runner as he passes.)

Conclusions Drawn: When the Owner takes his or her Dog for a walk, they are, in fact, not taking the Dog for a walk, but rather for a trip out of doors so the Dog may defecate on public property. If necessary, the Owner will then pick up the doggy waste with a plastic bag and carry it around on the sidewalk until they return home. This is an inherently embarrassing activity for the Owner and they do not wish to be seen doing it. Said Owner will therefore try to pretend that they are invisible during this chore and will exercise their invisibility by pretending that they cannot see anyone else who happens to be out on the sidewalk, including the friendly neighborhood Runner.

We may also choose to incorporate the social interaction present in Scenario A, in which case it is clear that anyone who is walking around carrying a bag full of Dog poo, shall feel inherently inferior to a vigorous Runner in the throes of physical exertion. The resentment this breeds may only compound the Dog Owner’s lack of cooperation with the Runner on the sidewalk.

I could go on (you know I could), but I think I’ve made a few worthwhile observations and I’ll quit while I’m ahead. I admit that my sample size is relatively small, being the observational records of one individual (myself) and the anecdotal evidence of a few others, but the anonymity of the interaction and the astonishing consistency of the behavior displayed in each scenario give me confidence that my otherwise pompous assessments are grounded in some fact.

I assure you, I intend to conduct many, many more fact finding excursions and add to the previously gathered evidence. I’ll keep you posted…

And I'm Tired Just Watching Him

This is just a testament to the fact that no matter how much you think you do (or how much others think you do), someone else is always doing more, going farther.

I saw this guy on the lakefront here in Chicago late last week:

In case you can't tell, those are two tires he's dragging, tethered to his waist, across an snowy/icy dirt path along the lakefront. I wasn't close enough to see if there was anything inside the tires.

He wasn't running, he was power-walking with trekking poles. I'm not even completely sure what he was training for, though I assume it was a workout for the lower body power muscles. (Maybe it was a final training session for this race, which just started yesterday.) He covered at least 4 or 5 miles like that, because I saw him headed back in the other direction 40 minutes later.

I wonder what happened when he passed the dog play park a mile down the path?