Straight Shot

I ran downtown again this morning - the same run that I meant to do last week, only this time I didn't get lost.

I spent a fair amount of time people-watching... at 8:30 on a Sunday morning, there aren't so many people out there (the place I caught the train back is kind of creepy in its emptiness at that time, actually), but - I don't know.

There are the other runners, who can be broken into various subsets - the smile-and-nod-in-solidarity runners versus the I'm-in-my-zone-don't-look-at-me runners, or the in-pain-and-not-trying-to-hide-it runners versus the BQ-or-bust runners, or the lycra-shorts-and-colourful-sports-bra runners versus the rumpled-t-shirt-and-ill-fitting-shorts runners (or the guy I saw running in jeans and a polo shirt. Yes, really).

Then there are non-runners of similar subsets. You get the people who smile at you and step out of the way so that you don't have to slow down (this morning, one man turned to smile and say, "You go, girl!"), and you get the people whose facial expressions say, clearly, "Why on earth is she doing that?"

If you take the subway home, you get three kinds of looks from people: "Good for you! You've been out exercising already", "Ew, get away from me, you sweaty person", or "Uh... why are you on the subway? Shouldn't you be in a gym, or running, or something?" (Well, you also get a lot of people who just don't care. But that's par for the course anyway.)

If - like me! - you get lost a lot, you end up interacting with more people than you might otherwise. I have honed my direction-asking skills - it pays to be small, female, and have a trace of an accent (I am told that this combination comes in handy in evading speeding tickets as well, but... well, I still can't drive, so that point is moot). I guess it's also a matter of knowing who to ask (i.e., don't ask the guy talking on a cell phone and juggling a cup of coffee and checking his watch as he hurries in the opposite direction), but honestly... people up here are nicer than they get credit for, I think.

I guess at some point I'm going to have to figure out how to make this run a loop - I like loops; I like Point-A-to-Point-B runs; I very much dislike there-and-back runs - at which point I may get to find whole new subsets of people to eyeball.