Social Distance Running

I had 3 more non-interesting pretty easy runs this week. I'm not trying to "progress" with any training, but I'm trying to get my body used to running WHILE making my foot/ankle feel better. It's a work in progress / I'm a work in progress.

I've been avoiding my favorite route along River Road for a few reasons. First, I want to not be turning if at all possible - it stresses my foot a bit more. Second, it's down a decent sized hill, so I have to climb that on the way back, and I don't want that to over-stress my foot either. And third, it's been a bit "crowded" down there, and I'm trying to be good about "social distancing" in this time of COVID-19.

My wife works in the 2nd biggest hospital in the Metro, and (I believe) the biggest trauma center in the state. So they see lots of cases there. She's afraid of bringing it home, so I have to always act like *I* might be the one who's sick when I'm out in public. I'm not wearing a mask yet, but we talked about it again just last night. (And she's joked [but is also serious] about making a "HEALTHCARE WORKER: STAY BACK 6 FEET" shirt because on days she runs home, people have NOT been good about staying to their side of the trail. She's annoyed.)

My point is that I've been trying to be good about it on runs. By running straight down my street and back, I'm avoiding "runner heavy" areas nearby like Summit Ave, River Road, and the Greenway Trail (which, in my current state of 4-4.5 mile runs, I'd barely get to that trail anyway before having to turn around). Yes, I encounter people, but I SWING WIDE. Cleveland Ave has a bike lane in either direction, so there's usually 4-5 feet of lane for me to hop in to swing wide if I need to. And my Garmin shows that as well. Here are a few times meeting people in my 3 runs this week:

Heading north, popping into the parking/bike lane to pass a family with a kid on a trike.


Swinging wide at Dayton to pass 2 college students.


Passing a guy walking his dog.


Two groups: first passing 2 dog walkers, and then
passing (what looked like) a mother/daughter out on a walk.

Notice most of those happen at a cross-street or an alley. I do that just because it's a bit easier on my foot, and because there's SO little traffic, I haven't felt the need to jump out of the bike lane ASAP. (Side note: even though there's SO little traffic, I nearly got hit by a car on the sidewalk at the gas station on Grand and Cleveland on my first non-treadmill run on March 16, and I was nearly hit a week later by a garbage truck who wasn't paying attention as he came out of an alley as I was on the sidewalk - no, he didn't have an impeded line-of-sight.)

Anyway, just trying to do my part. If it just means not getting to close to people, that's easy.

If you missed it, on Thursday I posted some running tips during this COVID-19 pandemic, and there are some other helpful links for "fit" people at the bottom of that post as well. Happy weekend!