Thursday, September 13, 2007

Running in The City

I had my first scary/not-so-safe running experience on Monday.
1.) If I go over 3 miles, I always try to run in The City. It’s about a 40 minutes drive from where I live, but my run is so much better that it’s totally worth it to drive in. Plus, I run errands in town.
a.) The City is, really, the safest city ever. I don’t know that for sure, or any statistics or anything, but in two years of living in the area I have never once felt unsafe or seen any kind of crime.

That being said:
I was about a mile into my run, when a guy in his mid 50s to early 60s passed me on his bike. He passed me, but then seemed more to loop around me.
“Do you like karaoke?” the man asks.
“Umm, Sure, I guess so” I say, thinking this guy was going to give me some flyer or something.
“There’s karaoke tonight at Bob’s Bar at 9:00” he says.
“Great” I say, still running.
“I’ll buy you a beer if you go,” he offers.
I try to remain ambiguous because I can see this going down poorly either way I answer; if it’s no, he’ll say why not or harass me more, and there’s just no way I’m saying yes to this guy. Even if I did say yes, it won’t guarantee that this guy is gone, it may just encourage him to keep following me.
My ambiguous answers are getting me no where though, cuz he starts asking “Well, are you gonna go?” and seems a little pissed about it.
At this point, I’ve reached the local Co-Op, so I just reply again “I dunno,” and duck into the parking lot. My next plan was going to be to go into the bathroom at the Co-Op, but when I turned around in the parking lot and Bike Guy was gone. I stood there for awhile, and people in the parking lot where looking at me funny. I just told them that the guy on the bike was bothering me and asking to buy me a beer, and the nice people in the parking-lot just said to “Yell if you need help” as I continued on my run.

I did a little over 4 miles, and with out music – which I must say, is some serious dedication. Still, I think my “list of things I need on a run” should be:
*Spandex shorts
*Shorts over spandex short
*Shirt/tank don’t mind sweating in
*Lots of hair ties
*Headphones
*I-pod
*I-pod holder
*Pepper Spray

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey, congratulations on the 4 mile run. Grrreat. Also in adding pepper spray. I think you should go to the police with exactly what you have written here. You don't have to press charges, just make a report. Thing is, if he is bothering, harassing, scaring you, he's probably doing it so somewone else. Take care.