Week: 11 miles
Workout: Niketown -- 72nd St. Transverse -- West Drive -- 102nd St. Transverse turn around -- go around the lower loop to 65th St. -- Niketown
On West Drive, some guy was running the other way. I was running on the inner portion of the recreation lane, next to people and tried to move in to give the guy a little more room even though he had plenty of room on his right. He was running in the bike lane. He didn't move an inch and ran into my shoulder. Not only that, I found out after the run that he did the same thing to a female friend who was running behind me. What a JERK! What made it even worse was that he LEANED INTO her. There wasn't any runner on his right, no bikes, and no cars. All he had to do was move 4 inches to his right and he would still have been in the bike lane. So if you happen to have the same experience in Central Park, let me know. I would love to find the guy and ask him why he can't move when there is clearly enough space.
If you have any suggestions for how a runner should deal with this guy, let me know. Someone who is not paying careful attention is going to get seriously hurt by this guy because he won't move and will end up knocking someone down.
Also, what is the "correct" direction to run in Central Park? Mr. Jerk was running counter clockwise and probably feels that's the "correct" direction. That's probably why he refuses to move. But, of course, there are plenty of people who run clockwise, including some running groups that sometimes have as many as 30 to 40 runners running together. I'm curious to see how Mr. Jerk responds when a large running group approaches him from the opposite direction. Are there any signs in the park that indicate the direction runners should be running? Running magazines will often say runners should run against traffic because it's safer to be able to see oncoming cars. That would mean running clockwise in the park. I would love someone to clarify this for me. I've been running in Central Park for 16 years now, and no one has given me a satisfactory answer. For the record, I run in both directions depending on which way the runners I'm with want to run. But I try to make room for runners coming the other way.
So, to all you runners who use Central Park, watch out for Mr. Jerk.
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