Social Runners and Walkers: Vampires and Zombies of the Road.

Ok, I'm back. Lots of personal crap going on, so don't chastise me for ignoring my blog. I've been keeping with the program, but I've had to cut a few runs short this last couple weeks because of time constraints and trying to fit them in between work and something going on in the early evening. Sometimes 40 minutes is all I have, and when that 40 minutes has to include getting a shower and getting dressed, you can only count on a mile or two.

There's been a few times where I felt I could go on forever, but had time issues. I'd really like to start amping up the distance to prep. for an 8K, as the 5K I have nailed down (not that improving time wouldn't help, but I thinking pushing an extra 3K would help that as well).

Today I went out for a walk with the girlfriend and the streets were flooding with these group walkers and runners. Essentially you pay something like $125 from May-Aug to run with others in some training program for this race in town.

Now, to be completely forthright, these people annoy the living crap out of me. It's not just that they pay to be with people and run with people, which annoys me enough because of my lone wolf runner mentality, either. It's that they flood the streets, yapping all the way, blocking road traffic, and listening to the trainers' every instruction like trained dogs. I just don't get it. There's no way a huddled mass of people of all different body types and fitness just all happen to run/walk at exactly the same speed.

I just don't get it. I run to get out some frustration and to be left alone for 30 measly minutes a day with my headphones blaring and compete with myself. If I even see a person on the street or sidewalk I'm on, I move to the other side of the road. These masses of people out there, at least when it's my running day, ruin it for me. I don't want you in my way, I don't want to see you, and I definitely don't want to join you like you have tried to yell out to me at times. The worst part is that some of these pinheads are people I know, and they try to lure me into it.

The walkers are even worse. Why do you need a group and trainer to walk? Just EFFING walk. It's the most ridiculous thing in the world for a trainer to be telling the walkers to "take it easy" for a few blocks. You've been walking, that's it. Every person with two working legs can pull that off. "What about the people who have been speed-walking," you say. Well, screw them. There's nothing in the course of mankind's stay on this world that has looked any dumber than speed-walking. Walk or run. Don't do some sort of half-bred mix of the two. You have to be the most annoyingly indecisive person in the world when you can't even make a decision when it comes to your gait.