Watch Out For The Runners And Bikers

By: Callie Benton (Educator, Wife and Mother of 3)

I have been cussed at, spit at, yelled at, threatened, and forced into ditch doing the activities that I enjoyed the most. For more than 10 years I have participated in road races ranging from small town 5Ks to those in the World Marathon Majors. I hit the streets with my feet or my bike. Maybe you have seen me. I am the lady with three children in your way on the streets.

My family enjoys riding our bikes to and from school, the store and the bank anytime the weather permits. Sometimes we are running and sometimes we are biking, but we are almost always talking, smiling and waving as the cars go by. We all enjoy being outdoors and using our feet to get where we want to go.

“Get off the road!” “Watch where you are going!?!” “Move over!” These are just the phrases that are appropriate to print in a newspaper, but these are the phrases that we hear as we travel and train for our events. My favorite phrase is “Use the sidewalk!” (and as I look around, there is not sidewalk.) I usually just shrug these comments off, but sometimes they come with threats and I am dumbfounded with how someone can be so angry at me for exercising.

I began road races when I lived in Manhattan through the encouragement of my sister Beth. In the beginning my children were very young and I would push them in a stroller or pull them in a trailer behind my bike. We moved “home” to Paola four years ago and I was thrilled to be moving to a small town where my kids could ride bikes and I could train with less stress of the bigger town traffic. Unfortunately, I was incorrect about my foreseen safety for myself and my kids. I have been threatened, spit at, cussed at, and had cars swerve to try hit me since I have been running in my small town. I often miss my days of running with my SeeMommyRun.com group in Manhattan where 15-20 moms with strollers would take over the roads in Manhattan for our morning runs. I have trained with a group of six runners in Paola and the negative response we got from traffic was horrible. We had to run in a single file line which is a difficult task especially when pushing a jogging stroller up a hill. I was horrified the day I had my kids out for a run training for their *mile at a time marathon and someone flipped us off. I started complaining around town, letting people know how horribly difficult it is to train for a marathon in this small town. Everyone I talked to was surprised and amazed at how rude and horrible people had been. As with all small town discussions, it started getting back to me and people were apologizing for how horrible other people had been. They were not at fault, but they were sorry people were behaving so poorly. Shortly after these discussions I was out running with a friend in the early evening and a truck pulling a huge trailer completely stops in the middle of the road when he sees us coming. I said to my friend, “Look, he is stopping so we can go around, see not all people want us off the road” As we approached the side of the truck the man inside lays on his horn and points his finger at us and begins to scold us. I was in shock.

In my absolute defense I obey all the traffic laws for runners and bikers. I always run facing the cars so they can see me coming. I always bike with the traffic and use hand signals and wear a helmet. I was recently riding my bike and I put up a right turn hand signal. I made the right turn and just as I started to coast a truck flew by me close enough that I could have touched it. I chose the ditch rather than being hit by a truck. I am positive the truck did not give me the 4-foot passing clearance required by law. Living in Kansas, I do have to give up some of my time on the street because of the weather. You will not find me on the road while you are trying to maneuver through snow drifts and ice. I try to be accommodating to cars on the road by staying close to the curb or even hopping up in the grass if there is parking on the side of the road.

I understand that not everyone wants to hop on a bike and go for a ride or lace up their tennis shoes and go for a run, but I love it. Running is my stress release; I love it. I love the time it gives me to talk to my kids and my sister. I love to feel my heart pounding in my chest and I love the accomplishment I feel after a long run.

Share the road with me. Or better yet………………join me! To post and share running schedules visit SeeMommyRun.com.

(* run 25 miles one mile at a time until the day of the marathon they run the last 1.2 miles at the race)

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Posted by admin on Aug 25 2010. Filed under News and Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry