Common Sense

It is, unfortunately, starting to become fall and then winter. When I get up in the morning, it is dark. When I leave the office at the end of the day, it is dark. When I go out at lunchtime, I have to wear a coat. I am sad.

My training is currently in "taper" mode so that I don't overtrain before the marathon (10 days away!!!!!!!!!!!!), so I'm not doing a ton of extremely long runs. But whenever I leave my house on weekdays now, I have to wear bright clothing and my reflective vest. Because it's DARK outside, this seems like common sense to me. Cars + cyclists = danger. Even in daylight these are two categories of transportation that inspire the least amount of caution. No one can drive in DC (it's proven, google it, we have the worst drivers) and the cyclists are all...well...assholes. Let's face it. They kind of have to be to survive the horrible drivers, but it irritates the heck out of me when I'm running because they decide that no matter where they are riding, on the street, on the sidewalk, on the grass, on your treadmill, that they are the ones who get the right of way. My dream is to flip off a cyclist one day when they ding their stupid bell at me, but I'm afraid that they will grab my middle finger and drag me to the ground so I restrain myself.

I'm sorry, this is really not a post about how much I hate people on bicycles...

This is a post about how stupid runners can be.

So I'm out in my reflective vest, sometimes I even throw a little light on just to be extra safe, and I see runners wearing ALL BLACK. Black leggings, black shirt. And headphones. Scampering around the city like they own it and it just blows my mind. How would that EVER seem like a good idea? Black is slimming yes. Getting run over by a truck is also slimming in that you're squashed against the pavement.

I can't decide if there needs to be more awareness efforts (Lululemon, do you sell stylish reflective vests yet?) or what, but it's really amazing to me how many people are out there in their headphones and black spandex thinking that the DC cab drivers are going to be paying enough attention to stop in time. It just gives runners everywhere a bad name and is dangerous to boot.

Can anyone offer some insight into what these people are thinking?