The Running Thread - 2018

[Olallamom]

ATTQOTD:
I am lucky where I live in AZ as there are dedicated paths along the canal systems, great tree lined sidewalks and endless trails. I have on occasions used the bike lane to pass people but it’s a bit scary as drivers drive well over the 45 mph speed limit. The county I live in has spent lots of money on dedicated bike lanes but there have been bikers struck in these lanes.

 

[IamTrike]

ATTQOTD: For the most part most of my runs are done on Greenways or on trails, but periodically we'll stitch together a long run that isn't greenway. The only time I run on the road is if I'm in a residential neighborhood or if we are on the shoulder of a road running between Greenways. In the even we have to be on the shoulder we run single file, towards oncoming traffic.

Last week I saw 3 runners running spread out across a lane with the sun directly behind them. That seemed like a recipe for disaster.

 

[huskies90]

QOTD: Over the weekend a cyclist from this area and a friend were struck by a vehicle. The area they were at is a known and popular area for people to ride at. One of the riders did not make it and the other was airlifted to a local hospital. I realize there is a difference from running and biking, but around here the two activities are usually done by both on the same roads. For todays question I wanted to ask how safe do you feel in the areas you run in which you share the roads with normal traffic? Are there areas that people run, but you refuse to because of the traffic?

ATTQOTD: First off, I would love to bike to work since I work downtown in a city and only live 4 miles away. But judging by how many times I have almost been hit running, I am terrified to bike. We have a locker room at work with showers for the runners/bikers and I have talked to several folks that bike to work and just about all of them said they have been hit at least once – some several times. I just don’t need that.

As for running, whether I am running at lunch at work or at home it is always around busy streets. Luckily, most have sidewalks and I try to map some of my run through parks or along the river. But I can’t completely avoid having to cross busy streets or busy intersections with absolutely crazy Northeast drivers. I always assume they don’t see me. Especially, when I am on the left side of the road and they are turning right. They only look left and never see me coming from the right.

 

[gjramsey]

ATTQOTD: During the week, I run so early in the morning, traffic is not a concern in the neighborhoods I run in. I do not run with headphones so I can hear everything around me.

On the weekend long runs, some of routes go along some busier roads with no sidewalks, but plenty of space to bail out into if needed. In one of those neighborhoods we used to be able to run on the streets with no issues, but some folks have gotten aggressive with runners and will not give any space and honk at us, even with no other traffic on the roads. Most of the runners in the club have taken to the sidewalk there now, even though the sidewalk is very uneven thanks to roots, or avoiding that area altogether.

 

[Grumpy_42K]

The fact is that many, many, drivers suffer from irrational road-rage behavior towards runners and cyclists.
It is the very definition of irrational behavior. No justification for the anger whatsoever.
Many drivers get angry if a lone bike impedes their path for 500 milliseconds.
They react as if they are driving behind the Tour de France!

That is a reality we all must deal with. It will not change.
In fact, it will only get worse since terrorists are using the tactic of running over pedestrians.

You must use extreme caution and be aware of your surroundings at all times.
I try very hard to keep myself out of harms way.
Even in dedicated bike lanes you'll see some jackwagon crowding the lane while streaming Game Of Thrones.

I ride my mountain bike a whole lot because it allows me to ride on terrains away from killer vehicles.
Stay safe y'all!

 

[Kerry1957]

ATTQOTD: I'm fortunate to live less than a mile from the middle of the Des Plaines River Trail which is over 50 miles in length from the Illinois/Wisconsin border south. I rarely run anywhere else.

 

[LSUlakes]

Few comments:

To our posters to the north and a day late, Happy Canada Day!

Second on the agenda. I recently received my shirt shipment from TeePublic and after washing them my noticed that the back of the shirt the threading was coming undone. I sent a very polite e-mail explaining what had happened and included pictures so they could see what I was talking about. I mentioned that I had a trip in 10 days and was hoping to have the shirt for it. Well this morning I get a email from them telling me they are sending me another free of charge and shipping it 3-5 air. I cant say enough great things about there site and just wanted to pass along the information.

 

[YawningDodo]

June total:
11.89 miles

ATTQOTD: I'm pretty fortunate in where I live, which is in the historic central neighborhood of a small city...meaning 100-year-old suburbs, basically. Everything's laid out in a grid, but there are only a few streets that see much traffic, especially early in the morning. When I run from home my warm-up consists of walking far enough to use the traffic lights and get out past the busy streets and into one of the quiet parts of the neighborhood, where I run on the sidewalks. I'm crossing a street every block, but the cars are sparse and slow and my route is flexible so I can usually just turn the corner and head down another block rather than fuss about making sure I was seen so I can cross the street if I do see/hear a car coming. I always aim to finish my run out past the busy streets and not cross back into the busier part of the neighborhood until I'm on my cool-down and back to walking without my earbuds in.

On Saturdays I sometimes still run from the front door like that if I'm on a tight schedule, but usually I'll drive to one of the city parks or to one of the parking pull-outs along the riverside trail. It's nice to have one day each week when I'm not watching for cars...or running on crumbling sidewalks.

Back when I lived in Austin I used to ride my bike most places, and when I think back on it I cringe at how dangerous it was. Even with bike lanes (and nowhere near all of the streets there have them), it was a wonder I never got hit. It was a much discussed, widely recognized issue that the bus drivers in the city were frequently aggressive toward people on bikes and in crosswalks; I had one pass within about a foot of me on my bike, and another time a bus hit a kid in the crosswalk between the university and the co-op when the light was still red and the bus had no business moving--he got ticked off, I guess, that a crowd of students were playing Foam Sword Friday in the crosswalk to celebrate the end of the semester (seriously, though, the light was still red and the students were perfectly within their rights to be hitting each other with boffers in the street at that moment). The kid was fine, but it was all over the campus news.

 

[avondale]

QOTD: Over the weekend a cyclist from this area and a friend were struck by a vehicle. The area they were at is a known and popular area for people to ride at. One of the riders did not make it and the other was airlifted to a local hospital. I realize there is a difference from running and biking, but around here the two activities are usually done by both on the same roads. For todays question I wanted to ask how safe do you feel in the areas you run in which you share the roads with normal traffic? Are there areas that people run, but you refuse to because of the traffic?

I absolutely do not run on roads where I live. This is partly because of the obvious safety concerns as demonstrated in your local story. But also where I live, we have lots of residential neighborhoods with sidewalks and also lots of paved trails for walking/running/biking, so I feel like there is no good reason to run on the roads. Whether or not running on roads is legal, I feel like in a lot of cases it creates a potential hazard as even drivers who are paying attention may need to pull into the other lane to get around a runner.

Fortunately, I don't see a lot of runners on roads around where I live, presumably because of the reasons above. There are lots of runners on the trails I mentioned, including groups with local running organizations.

I always feel bad about runners stuck in areas with no sidewalks or trails to enable them to keep safely off the roads.

Where I live, cyclists are more on the roads and thus more involved in accidents. Some of them are recreational and some are commuting.

 

[Barca33Runner]

ATTQOTD:

I don't trust other drivers, whether I am behind the wheel or otherwise. Since I don't trust them I am unwilling to place my well-being in their hands.

It is sad that I don't believe it is safe to run or bike near any type of automobile traffic; but drivers are distracted and/or irrationally angry and many don't have a basic level of competence at the best of times.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

ATTQOTD - Most of my mileage is on trails, so I have to be wary of bears and bobcats, not cars. When I run on the roads here, I run on a rural highway with very wide shoulders. Running into traffic, I would almost have to try to get hit by a car, even if the car was driving very poorly. As a runner, where I live - very safe.

I travel a lot with my job and would not run in many of the areas in which I travel. Example - the state of IL. Does the state believe in killing pedestrians? Road shoulders are less than a foot wide, and there is usually no flat ground off the pavement. I travel to IL a lot and will drive to paths to run or use a hotel dreadmill before risking my life on those roads.

As for bikers - I guess this is going to sound mean, but no one should feel safe riding a bike on a road. Drivers are not paying attention, and if you get even slightly rubbed by a car, you could easily die. I just don't understand why people would take those risks in the US.

 

[LSUlakes]

Since we have races midweek this week I am posting the list early. This week we have the following folks with races:

July
04 - @Disney at Heart - Peachtree Road Race 10k (NG / N/A)
04 - @apdebord - Peachtree Road Race 10K (NG / N/A)
04 - @The Expert - Peachtree Road Race 10k (NG / N/A)
04 - @OldSlowGoofyGuy - Peachtree Road Race 10k (49:59 / N/A)
04 - @TheHamm - Firecracker 5K (34:00 / N/A)
04 - @TCB in FLA - Firecracker 5k (NG / N/A)
04 - @MissLiss279 - Firecracker 5000 10k (NG / NA)
04 - @JeffW - Breckenridge Independence Day 10k Trail Race (NG / N/A)
04 - @kleph - Liberty by the Lake 10k (NG / N/A)
07 - @KSellers88 - Burn Your Half Off (NG / N/A)

Best of luck this week! If you need to revise your goal or if someone else would like to add a race to the list, just let me know!

 

[kbenson13]

My first full month total since I've been actively participating in this board!
June 2018:
Total Miles: 92.82
Total Time: 14:51:54

I have a week-long camping trip with my son for Boy Scouts in July that my training plan goes on pause for, or I would probably exceed 100 miles in July. I'm looking forward to achieving that milestone, which will hopefully happen in August!

ATTQOTD: I am terrified of riding my bike on any roads. In Houston, people leave bikes painted white anywhere that a cyclist is hit and killed, as a sort of monument and reminder. There are way to many white bikes around town, many of which are in places you would never guess that there was a high risk of a cyclist getting hit and killed (roads with light traffic through residential streets that nobody should be going more than 20-30mph on). I'm thinking of getting one of those Peloton bikes so I can train cycling indoors on something that is mildly similar to riding a real bike. I do occasionally ride at 5:00am in the morning in tight loops around my house where there is almost zero cars but even that scares me.

I try to run on sidewalks where I can (though I hate running on sidewalks because their are usually uneven), but my neighborhood does not have sidewalks on every street (or most streets) so I choose to run in the streets fairly frequently. I generally try to run in the early mornings when there are few cars and I run on the left side of the road so hopefully I can see the cars even if they can't see me. I still generally try to stay off roads that are main arteries or "through-streets" that connect major arteries but I'm not perfect. The craziest thing is I run (*usually* on the sidewalk) right by one of those white bikes most mornings.... I also have to cross (usually at intersections with traffic lights) a fair number of those main arteries or I would be running in a very small and boring loop. I feel decently safe but have already had a few instances where a car could have hit me if I didn't see them and get out of their way first. The worst place for me is one particular traffic light where I want to cross the street and there are a ton of cars making right turns that immediately leads to an interstate on-ramp so these people are making that right turn and thinking of getting themselves up to interstate speed ASAP. Even with the crosswalk light on, plenty of drivers never look for pedestrians and I've had a few close calls...

For what it's worth when I'm on the streets and a car does pass me, I try to make as much room for them that I can and I give them a friendly smile and a wave. I'm trying to make them see me as an appreciative human and not some jerk animal that is impeding their commute to work by half a second (forcing them to *gasp* slow down to something resembling the actual speed limit on a residential street)...

 

[PCFriar80]

June "Summer"y and ATTQOTD:
Still nursing the achilles tendonitis with diminishing calf pain so running miles are still down, being offset by biking, elliptical, mowing and spectating a PGA tournament. I closed out the month with a 3 mile [mostly pain free] run but my gait seemed a little off. I'm going to minimize my runs for the first half of July and give the right leg some TLC.

Running miles: 18.2
Biking miles: 128.5
Elliptical: 8.5 hours [10 occurrences]
Mowing: 5 times [starting to brown out here in CT]
PGA Tour spectating: Traveler's Championship - 3 days; pro-am, rounds 1 and 2. Covered about 16 miles of walking. Oh, and Bubba Watson won.
Marathon weekend planning: Booked R/T airfare from BDL/MCO

ATTQOTD:
I live in a rural area with no sidewalks and stop signs that drivers seem to think are optional. I'm a defensive runner always on alert for that stray car. I run against traffic and with no ear-buds. I make it a point to acknowledge drivers that go out of there way for me by giving them a friendly wave. Over the course of 10+ years I have had a couple of close calls and reported license plate numbers to the local police.

 

[rteetz]

QOTD: Over the weekend a cyclist from this area and a friend were struck by a vehicle. The area they were at is a known and popular area for people to ride at. One of the riders did not make it and the other was airlifted to a local hospital. I realize there is a difference from running and biking, but around here the two activities are usually done by both on the same roads. For todays question I wanted to ask how safe do you feel in the areas you run in which you share the roads with normal traffic? Are there areas that people run, but you refuse to because of the traffic?

I typically run in a neighborhood area to avoid traffic and people. Once in a while I will cross a busy road but usually it’s not rush hour or anything while I am running.

 

[FFigawi]

QOTD: Over the weekend a cyclist from this area and a friend were struck by a vehicle. The area they were at is a known and popular area for people to ride at. One of the riders did not make it and the other was airlifted to a local hospital. I realize there is a difference from running and biking, but around here the two activities are usually done by both on the same roads. For todays question I wanted to ask how safe do you feel in the areas you run in which you share the roads with normal traffic? Are there areas that people run, but you refuse to because of the traffic?

I feel perfectly safe running on the roads around here. I run early in the morning when there is not much traffic on roads with relatively low speed limits. Biking is a whole different ball game. Unless I'm with a large number of friends on my training team, I don't feel very comfortable riding in the city. The country roads are fine, but not in the city.

 

[cburnett11]

ATTQOTD: Most of my runs are either in my own neighborhood or at an extensive park system that begins a couple miles from my house. I'm pretty blessed that I can easily get to this park and "could" have uninterrupted runs of 38 miles (19 out and back). The plan is to finish another 81 miles to get to a total 100-mile loop. The irony here is that on at least 2 days/week I drive to this park and do all/most of my workout on a 0.8 mile oval.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

ATTQOTD: Most of my runs are either in my own neighborhood or at an extensive park system that begins a couple miles from my house. I'm pretty blessed that I can easily get to this park and "could" have uninterrupted runs of 38 miles (19 out and back). The plan is to finish another 81 miles to get to a total 100-mile loop. The irony here is that on at least 2 days/week I drive to this park and do all/most of my workout on a 0.8 mile oval.

 

[GreatLakes]

I need a new bike. All I have is a 14yo mountain bike and I really feel like I’m fighting the road with it. I’ve got a number of good bike shops near me that cover the major brands very well. The one I like is big on Specialized. I test rode a Roubaix out there yesterday and wanted to try an Allez, but they didn’t have one in my size. I really enjoyed the Roubaix and it just went on sale. Any feedback on that model or what I should be looking for?

Specialized makes great bikes. I'll echo what everyone else said but want to caution you on two things regarding carbon bikes. First, carbon rides very differently than aluminum or steel bikes. Get out and ride it a bit before committing and make sure the feel isn't too different for you. Second, be very cautious about buying used carbon bikes. They could have hairline fractures, even internally where you can't see them, and not be safe. Unless you are buying it from someone you trust took car of it and had it routinely serviced by a reputable dealer I would not buy a used carbon bike but that is just my recommendation. Personally I like the feel of an aluminum bike with a carbon fork which is a way to get some of the benefits of carbon for less money.

QOTD: Over the weekend a cyclist from this area and a friend were struck by a vehicle. The area they were at is a known and popular area for people to ride at. One of the riders did not make it and the other was airlifted to a local hospital. I realize there is a difference from running and biking, but around here the two activities are usually done by both on the same roads. For todays question I wanted to ask how safe do you feel in the areas you run in which you share the roads with normal traffic? Are there areas that people run, but you refuse to because of the traffic?

The majority of my runs are on roads and only on the extremely busy roads do I use the sidewalk. I feel more safe in the street running against even heavy traffic than I do on sidewalks where cars back all the way past you to the street before looking.

In other news I just got confirmation that I will be in Orlando for a conference Sept 30 - Oct 4 at the Marriott World Center. It is right in the middle of my 10k cycle for W&D and I need to find a track. It looks like Celebration has a publicly accessible track for repeats. Has anyone ever done any track work near Disney? Is there a better track that is open to the public?

 

[sylkai]

June total: 51.9mi. Sigh. All by June 10th.

Still not clear if it's stress fractures or just stress reactions in both tibias at the same time. To some extent, doesn't really matter because the treatment is the same, just a question of how long. Because why do just one when you can do both? (Don't be me and make a number of questionable decisions about increasing intensity all at the same time.)

So there's also 89 miles of biking and what Garmin thinks is the equivalent of 35 miles of pool running in there. I keep hoping the physical therapist will say I can start looking at returning to running *this* week.

ATTQOTD: I normally run on a mixed-use trail (which we will not get into cyclist etiquette) but the closest I've come to being hit are a number of driveways on the way to/from.