Move over!

I recently went to a local high school track to do a track workout. The high school is only 10-15 min from my house, so it's pretty convenient even if the school is my high school's county rival. The workout I did I like to call, "The Devil Workout" because I did 6 x 400s, 6 x 200s, and 6 x 100s (get it? 666?!).

I'm so glad the the high school track is open to the community where people can come walk or run and just get moving, but there is one simple, important courtesy that people should follow if they're going to use the track. If you're walking on the track and somebody else is running, walk in one of the outer lanes, let the runner have the 1st lane. In other words, MOVE OVER! It's really not that hard. This also applies if you're running, but somebody is running faster than you...you move to the right.

There were several people walking on the track when I showed up to do my workout, but there was one woman who walked in the first lane and would not move. In between each of the 400s, I took a 2 minute break. I did 3 of my 400s to her 1...and I was taking 2 minutes in between each...and she still didn't move out of the first lane! It was annoying.

I told my mom about it when I got home (since she likes to walk a lot), and she told me that I should have run by her really close to scare her into walking in one of the other lanes. Josh said I should've just run her over! (Note to self, don't ever get in Josh's way!)

The courtesy also applies on trails. If you're on a trail and you come up on somebody, you should pass them on the left and they should move to the right. On exercise trails (biking and running), the proper etiquette is to say out-loud, "Passing on the left." If someone is passing you and the trail is really narrow, you might even want to step off the trail, somewhere safe, in order to give them room to pass.

Also, if you're going to run on a trail with a large group of people, be courteous of the other people who want to use the trail. Do not take up the entire trail! Break into smaller groups or run in pairs or something.

When I lived in Baltimore, I used to run at the NCR trail a lot. It was this nice, wide, flat trail that people would run, walk, and ride bikes on. There was this one time I went, and there was this large group of young girls that all ran together and took up the entire trail! The ENTIRE trail! And they were going really slow. I could've walked faster than they were jogging. There was one point in my run that I had to stop running and I walked behind them until I could pass them! It was just really rude of them to take up the entire trail when there were other people using it.

So, whether you're at a local track or on a trail, if someone is going faster than you, move over to right for them to pass. If you're on a trail with a large group of people, don't take up the whole trail. And if you ever see Josh running, stay out of his way!

here's a pic of Josh running so you know what he looks like in order to stay out of his way.