Here’s the question (pertaining to Kathie Lee and Hoda’s show): Do slow walkers make you angry?

They had a discussion on today’s show based on a Facebook group entitled something like “I wanna punch slow walkers in the back of the head.”

I found this discussion interesting, given that I spend some time on sidewalks while I’m running, and often dealing with other pedestrians can be just as difficult as dealing with things like cars who forget that people may actually be on the sidewalks.

Now, here’s the thing. I have no problem with people who walk slow. None at all. In fact, I’m happy when I’m out on a sidewalk and I see other people actually using it. Slow, fast, whatever. 

What I don’t like is when people take up the entire sidewalk. Weaving back and forth, chatting on phones (which I don’t have a problem with unless they are not paying attention), walking their dog and having the dog take up the entire sidewalk.

The rules of the sidewalk are as follows: walk/run on the right, pass on the left.

Easy! Or, it should be.

But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run up behind someone who is walking slowly, taking up the entire width of the sidewalk, and I have to gauge how soon to call out “coming up on your left!” I need to be close enough that they’ll hear me, but not so close that I will startle them.

And when I do call it out, about half of the time they look irritated at me as I run around them. I’m sorry folks, but if you’re gonna take up 100% of the sidewalk, be prepared to deal with another pedestrian at some point during your walk!

Yesterday on my 12.5 mile run/walk, I encountered the following:

1 – person with a dog who was very considerate. I didn’t even have to call out to her because her dog turned to look at me when I was still fairly far back. She in turn got off the sidewalk completely with her dog to let me run by. This is how I handle it when I’m out with my dogs, too. Not everyone likes dogs and it’s nice of dog owners to recognize that.

2 – people with dogs who took up the entire sidewalk with the dog, and then proceeded to look frustrated at me as I ran by. One person was coming in the opposite direction, toward me, and she had plenty of time to get her dog out of the way and chose not to. I prayed her dog wasn’t an ankle biter and kept going. It worked out fine, but what if I were scared of dogs?

1 – Couple who was walking in the road as I ran behind them on the sidewalk. It just so happened that a car came right as I was near them, and they jumped from the road onto the sidewalk without looking at the sidewalk. They then realized I was there and had to jump into the grass to avoid colliding with me, as I jumped into the grass on the opposite side. That incident was fairly funny, but maybe they should look before they cross over!

2 or 3 – bikes on the sidewalk. One guy even had a tennis racket strapped to his back and I feared it would hit me in the head as he whizzed by me.

Several – cars pulling out too far and I had to run around them in the crosswalk. Other cars pulling right out without even looking at the sidewalk. Please remember – there is more than one kind of traffic!

—

As you can probably guess, this can make for a very frustrating run/walk. Unfortunately, I’m starting to get used to it. But if we could all have a little awareness of each other, then there would be room for everyone on the sidewalk – slow walkers, fast runners, and dogs! (But not bikes. Get your bike off the sidewalk, please.)

I got this information from this week’s TrySports newsletter:

Take the NCDOT Bike and pedestrian survey – and let your voice be heard!

NCDOT is conducting a survey to collect citizen feedback on statewide bicycle and pedestrian safety issues. The survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete and will assist NCDOT in assessing the public’s needs and concerns regarding bicycle and pedestrian safety. Your participation and comments are highly valued! You are welcome and encouraged to circulate the survey to friends and colleagues who reside in North Carolina. Survey responses will be collected through February 8, 2011.

The results will be used as a primer to for a series of roundtable discussions scheduled for later this year and will be helpful in determining the level of public support for future investment in the state’s bicycle and pedestrian network. The survey is being administered in partnership between NCDOT Division of Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation and the Institute for Transportation Research and Education Bicycle and Pedestrian Program at North Carolina State University.

To participate, click on this link: http://www.itre.ncsu.edu/Public/Bike-Ped-NCDOT-Survey.html

For more information, please contact Sarah O’Brien at skworth@ncsu.edu.

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I filled it out. This issue is so important to me, as I spend a lot of time running on the roads around here – and I have to tell you, not having sidewalks can be so scary. I don’t bicycle nearly as often as I’d like simply because I am terrified of getting hit by a car. If we could get more bike lanes / sidewalks / greenways, we could all be a lot happier – whether you’re a motorist or a cyclist or a pedestrian. Can you fill out this survey? Thanks so much!

So, the folks over there like to have fun with stats, such as telling us how much gas money we’ve saved by commuting via foot or bike. (I’ve saved $92.14 since joining about 2 years ago). I’ve also made it .07 around the world – long way to go.

They recently sent us all a “yearly report” where we could see our accomplishments of 2010, Daily Mile-style.  I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I’d run 1182 miles, but here’s some more fun:

So, there’s the breakdown. I’m suddenly understanding why I felt so good about myself during my triathlon-training time (my triathlon was in June; look at those numbers!). My marathon was in October, which accounts for July-October numbers. November, wow. Now I get where those extra few pounds came from. I picked it up in December, though, and I’m feeling pretty good right about now, so there’s that! (For the record, my January mileage totals are gonna suck since I’m doing P90x and that’s not a lot of miles. I maybe get one mile a day jumping around in my living room.)

So, I burned 34 pounds, huh? I’d like to know where that weight went! Guess I picked it up with the eating …

So, I had good karma (gave more comments than I received. That’s cool.) My most popular activity was running. As if we didn’t know that. I work out more in the evenings, and I burned 657 donuts. That sounds impressive until I broke it down in my head – that’s less than 2 donuts a day. All that working out, and I would have evened out the calories with as little as 2 donuts a day. Ick!

My average feeling was good. My longest streak was only 4 days? I don’t buy that, seeing as how my marathon training schedule had me working out 6 days a week … I know I skipped a few workouts, but not that many! Right? Er … My average mileage looks to be somewhere between 3-4 miles. Again, I’m surprised. I was running a minimum of 4 or 5 miles during marathon training, so I’m surprised it’s not a little higher! Looks like the 5 mile mark isn’t far behind, though.

My goal for the year: “Marine Corps Marathon – to complete it with a smile on my face!”

Looks like I attained my goal!

Me crossing the finish line of the Marine Corps Marathon

And last but certainly not least, my top motivators on the site were Jessica, Michael and Chris. Thanks guys!!

So, unfortunately if there were any stats from 2009 I didn’t save them. So I don’t have anything to compare this to. But I now have something to compare 2011 to! If you’re on Daily Mile, what did you think of your yearly report? If you’re not and you work out, come join us over there. You can talk about running and cycling to your heart’s content, and no one will even bat an eye …

According to Daily Mile, here are my workout stats for 2010.

Distance run/walked/cycled, etc: 1,182.37 miles
Farthest running mileage: 26.8 miles
Fastest running pace: 7:11 minute mile

Bring it, 2011!

But while I’m getting all the other stuff together, I wanted to talk about something more general regarding triathlons. There seems to be something very intimidating about them. I know I felt it before Saturday – I am an ok runner, a slow cyclist and don’t even get me started on swimming. So am I going to look like a fish out of water compared to all these elite athletes who excel in all of the sports?

Not to worry. Truly.

Now, I can’t speak for those that were in the front of the pack. There may be a much more competitive angle up there. But in my group, everyone was scared. Everyone.

Here’s how it works (for the pool swims like the one I did anyway):

When you sign up, you have to fill out how fast you swim 300 meters (or 100 meters, or 500 meters, or whatever they ask you.) You make your best guess at how fast you will be, and then the race directors put you in order – fastest to slowest. It’s that simple. My number was 88 – which means that, according to me, I’m the 88th slowest swimmer in the race.

Since I’d never done competitive swimming before, this was a hard guess for me to make. Many guess wrong (including me; I underestimated myself). But on race day, I found myself surrounded by the 87th slowest swimmer, the 89th slowest swimmer, and others near our numbers.

And this race began so much differently than any running race (for one, we were in the pool. Duh.) But there was no start gun and no mass charge through the water (although open water swims are like this). No, this was one at a time. Which meant I had to wait for 87 swimmers to get in the water before I could. Which meant there was a lot of time to kill.

This was a good thing, in my opinion. It gave me the chance to make new friends! And these friends were crucial – these were the people that were going to be my peers in the water. These were the people I could potentially upset if I did something wrong. These were the people that could laugh at me and say to their friends later, “Man, there was this one girl; she was just thrashing around as if she’d never seen a pool before …”

But it turns out – these people were as scared as I was. It was a first triathlon for almost all of us. In fact, conversation as we waited was often something like this:

Guy in front of me: “If I get tired, I’m just going to walk along the bottom; that’s how bad of a swimmer I am.”
Me: “I think it’s against the rules to touch the bottom of the pool.”
Guy behind me: “Are you serious? Is that really true?”
Me: “I dunno – that’s just what I heard, but I can’t remember where. Trust me, I really have no clue what I am talking about …”

(Turns out I was right. Jeff said officials were yelling at people not to walk on the bottom. Glad I didn’t give misinformation!)

The great thing about all that uncertainty is that I truly didn’t feel nervous by the time I got to the water. If I screwed up, well, these guys probably wouldn’t know any different anyway! I knew I certainly wasn’t going to be checking out their form and criticizing anything …

As it turns out – I was actually able to pass two people. I never in a million years thought that I would do that. And I should have passed two more. This is why it’s not good to seed yourself improperly – I said it would take me 8.5 minutes to swim 300 meters, and it actually only took me 7 mins and 9 seconds. And had I passed everyone I should have passed, I would have been much faster than that – I felt like I was crawling behind them the last half of the swim portion.)

And lest I sound like I’m bragging for all those swimmers I bested, not to worry. I saw them later on the course – when they left me in the dust on the bikes. Turnabout is fair play!

So, if you’re intimidated to try a triathlon, don’t be. Truly. There are those that do this every weekend and know every rule and technique, and there are those who are good at one sport and bad at the rest – and there are those who will be slow at all three. The point is – it’s fun. It really, really is. I look forward to the next one – maybe I’ll get to see my old swimming buddies – but next time, I’ll be slightly ahead of them in line. It’s only fair, of course – will give me a head start before they smoke me on the bike.

I feel ready and not ready, all at the same time.

I know this much: I love it already. Even if tomorrow blows, I’m still enjoying the multi-sport workouts and all the good that comes with it. I’m sold!

And, I’m super-stoked that Scott’s mom is coming to this one – I joked that she was coming to see me and not Scott, and Scott said she actually did pick this one of his because it’s my first one. That one brought tears to my eyes.

Can’t wait to be at a triathlon where I’m actually a participant and not a spectator!

I feel ready and not ready, all at the same time.

I know this much: I love it already. Even if tomorrow blows, I’m still enjoying the multi-sport workouts and all the good that comes with it. I’m sold!

And, I’m super-stoked that Scott’s mom is coming to this one – I joked that she was coming to see me and not Scott, and Scott said she actually did pick this one of his because it’s my first one. That one brought tears to my eyes.

Can’t wait to be at a triathlon where I’m actually a participant and not a spectator!

Case in point:

Wednesday I rode my bike to TrySports (7 miles) for the group ride, only to have it rained out. Instead of calling it a day, Scott and I had Jeff meet us at Brixx for some beer and pizza. Way to not let the rainy day wash away the fun!

Thursday I ran from my house toward Colleen’s while I waited for her to get off of work. Once she got home she changed into workout gear and then came to pick me up (for the record, I was 5.75 miles from my house and about 1.5 miles from hers). We then went to Starbucks, got some iced coffee and hit the trail for a walk and gossip. Trail was flooded out but Plan B was just as good – we walked on the sidewalks instead, logging 3.5 miles of quality time and calorie-burning.

Saturday there was no time to work out. Why? Because Colleen and I were on a mission – finding fun costumes to run next weekend’s 1K beer run. Colleen got some fun 80s gear, including purple and teal high tops sneakers!, and I ended up ordering a beer garden girl costume:

It won’t arrive until right before the race, so fingers crossed it fits! If not, I know where to buy some high tops …

Sunday I went for a bike ride and run with my neighbor Melissa. We rode the course of the Ballantyne Triathlon and then ran it.  Then that afternoon, Chris and I rode the course of the Tri at Baxter. Running in the heat is always better with a friend. Riding on the roads is always better with a friend. In fact, everything is better with true friends – who support and love, and who will go walking with you when everything is flooded.

Dear Timi Daly [of Stanley Steemer],
 
I was bicycling around 5:45 pm today on Marvin Road toward Charlotte (in Marvin, NC.) One of your vans passed me, and as they did a man in the passenger seat leaned out the window and yelled at me to please cycle on the sidewalk.
 
Can you please pass on the message to him that sidewalks are meant for pedestrians only? Bicycles are considered vehicles as far as the [state] law is concerned; I certainly did not see him riding his van on the sidewalk, so I would ask him not to ask me to ride my bike on the sidewalk.
 
Regarding North Carolina bicycling laws, according to http://humantransport.org/bicycledriving/:
 
“Bicyclists have the right to access every destination reachable by public roads, and this right is protected by the traffic laws of every state. North Carolina law specifically defines bicycles as vehicles and assigns bicycle operators all of the rights and duties of drivers of vehicles on roads.”
 
I would also like to communicate that because of his actions, I will unlikely ever be contacting Stanley Steamer to clean my carpets. This may not be the marketing plan your corporation had in mind as it created your brightly painted vans, which went a long way toward advertising who exactly was yelling out the windows.
 
Thank you in advance for passing on the message.

–
Melissa Oyler

The ride was about 20 miles, and it was at TrySports, which is 7 miles away from my house. So I hopped on the bike – by myself for the first time in months – and got to it. The route I take is all right turns except for one, so it’s a fairly simple ride.

I left a few minutes later than I’d planned, so I stepped on it on the bike. And although my average pace was still pretty slow in a cyclist’s world, it was faster than I’d been doing. I’m used to riding around 4 minute miles if I step on it, and yesterday my fastest mile was 3:04. I practiced not braking on the downhills and that worked out pretty well.

I only had one incident involving a motorist – a Stanley Steemer van passed me and a guy leaned out the passenger side and yelled at me to ride on the sidewalk. Silly man, don’t you know sidewalks are for pedestrians? (For the record, I Twittered to and emailed the company to let them know of the incident.)

I made it 5 miles easily, turned right onto Ardrey Kell, the road that TrySports is located on, and then the sky opened up. Not just rain – but a downpour. I was instantly soaked. I couldn’t see in front of me because the rain was splattering onto my face. I was concerned about slippery roads – both for me and for the motorists. Luckily there’s a really wide shoulder on that road, so I just kept it slow and steady and tried to make sure I was giving cars plenty of reaction time in case someone pulled out in front of me. My last mile was super slow (I was sitting at a stoplight for quite a while, so that’s partially my excuse).

I figured the group ride was canceled at that point, but I was closer to TrySports than home, and I knew Scott would give me a ride home. So I made the last two miles in the downpour and then showed up at the store – and to my surprise, there were lots of cyclists getting ready for their ride! I found two of Scott’s friends and asked them if they were still going. There was some wavering – we were gonna go, then not gonna go, then gonna go … and in the end, safety won out and we bailed.

Scott showed up just after everyone left and was shocked the ride still happened. I’m thinking I made the right call! So we called Jeff and had him meet us at Brixx where we had beer and pizzas. And decided that should be a weekly tradition after the rides – hopefully next time, there will be an actual ride.