Outta My Way!

I have a question for both cyclists and runners.

To clarify, I’m both a runner and cyclist. I understand pedestrians wander into bike lanes, which is bad enough, but runner who knowingly runs in the bike paths, should know better. Right?

Bike lanes are created so us cyclists have our own lanes to go as fast as we want without having to endanger pedestrians, dogs, people who think you’ve been cycling only for 1 day, cyclists from cars. This evening cycling home, I encounted 4 runners in my paths, who I wanted to yell ‘Are you ****** ****?’ as the oncoming cycle lane was in use. This particular path runs down the middle of the road that has traffic in both directions (it’s usual here for one bike path to be on one side of the road that serves both directions of cyclists and not go with the flow of the traffic. Normally there’s grass divider between the car lanes as in this case) and pavements. Sometimes people’s amount of common sense amazes me. All it takes sometimes is a little brain power.

I hope you had a great weekend! Mine was quite. Paul got called into work, so any plans changed. Saturday was the usual: workout (total body HIIT. I swapped up regular burpees for side burpess. I forgot how much fun they are!) chores, beach, bike ride. I’d had a few late evenings back in the week, so it was nice to be home early and watch Despicable Me. Those minions! I started to go through, switching my wardrobe around, however I got sidetracked paring jackets and scarves, jumpers and jeans/leggings/jeggings. I’m glad I didn’t finish switching it around completely as despite yesterdays stop play rain, it’s back to warm.  Bike ride vista. Barceloneta and Montjuic skyline

Sunday, I think saw a months worth of rain in one afternoon. The day started off warm yet gloomy, with the air filled with sea spray. That means two things: a mistral and perfect Med running weather! I fight a wind one way, but it’s not too cold, not to warm, just right. I follow the rule dress like it’s 10 degrees warmer outside when running. It started to drizzle just before I left and made a last minute decision to change my tank top for a longer sleeved top. While I don’t mind running the rain, I get cold if my shoulders are uncovered. I’m glad I did change, even if I did overheat slightly! The drizzle picked up so much that by the last 2km, it was getting heavier and heavier and I just made it back before it tipped down. All afternoon was intermittent down pours. Rain or no rain it was a tough 14km. Few other runners were out and hardly any weekend wanna be tour de france cyclists either. Only the hardcore out! And did I do any of those rainy day jobs? No! Maybe a few, but most of the time was taken up staring out the window, asking the rain to stop.

I’ve noticed with mistrals, the rain generally stops around early evening. We would have cycled but the rain was still heavy when we set off for a sunset stroll toward the beaches. 10 minutes in it was like someone had switched off the tap. It literally went from rivers in the street to nothing. Only a few other people out, dog walkers, some runners and plenty of surfers. Then it hit me why I hadn’t seen many people running in the morning. It wasn’t the weather, it was the La Merce 10km run earlier. 18,000 participants and there was me thinking only the dedicated runners were out today. Opps.

Please excuse the quality. I only took my iPhone on my sunset stroll.

What’s your view on runners in cycle lanes? Do you run in the rain?