Q: I am increasingly frustrated with walkers and pedestrians in my running path who have their heads buried in phones and are oblivious to passing traffic, ie me running. They have turned my running route into a nightmare. Don't tell me to change the route, I've been running it for nearly 30 years and I'm not changing a thing. Tell me how I can change them, oh master of grit.
Answer: Fair enough, I won't tell you to change your route (although this might be something to reconsider if the following fails, but I promise not to mention it again). Quite right – it's sacrosanct running turf that you've been working for almost 30 years, so stick to your guns!
Unfortunately, the onslaught of phone technology is only moving one way, which is further in the direction you loathe. So, what’s a belligerent runner like yourself to do? I see three distinct possibilities:
1 Let rip and give these young folk a piece of your mind. There are many ways you can go about this. Scare them into submission and off your running route by telling them off – loudly – as you run past. Think of a suitably frightening and pithy catchphrase and deliver it in the manner of a terrifying school headmaster.
Not only will the live contact with a human being totally freak them out, so given over are they to the “virtual world”, but you will feel vindicated and happy to have taken some action. You could take things up a grit notch by deliberately running into one or two who are so deeply buried into their phones so as to be oblivious to their environment and passing hazards.
The idea is to unsettle them, ideally knocking the phone out of their hand in the process. If they fall over, you’ve overdone it, but still, what doesn’t kill them only makes them stronger, right? You can follow this up with a lecture about their hazardous hand-held device activity while said innocents are picking themselves up off the floor. You could always borrow a savage dog and unleash the beast upon them, if the above fails to yield results.
I suspect the above has put a smile on your face because it is the kind of thing you were hoping to read. But, what I really want you to do is this:
2 Consider it from their point of view. Take off your runners and walk around (aimlessly, like a headless chicken) in their shoes for a bit. Possibly no real friends? Wandering around as they are in a social media haze, never to have known the joys of a five-mile run.
So, show them. Reinvent yourself as the Pied Piper of running, and lure them into detaching themselves from their evil devices and joining you on a screen-free 30 minute run.
3 If Pied Piperdom is a step too far, how about shifting your attitude to this whole debacle? The streets are no more yours than theirs, after all.
So cut them some slack, practise kindness, and try and remember that you, too, were young once.
The only thing you can control is your response to this situation, not the situation itself. So, change it . . . make your response a more positive one, by embracing all these running obstacles and somehow weaving them into your route.
Sign up for one of The Irish Times' Get Running programmes (it is free!).
First, pick the programme that suits you.
- Beginner Course: This programme is an eight-week course that will take you from inactivity to being able to run 30 minutes non-stop.
- Stay On Track: The second programme is an eight-week course for those of you who can squeeze in a 30- to 40-minute run three times a week.
- 10km Course: This is an eight-week course designed for those who can comfortably run for 30 minutes and want to move up to the 10km mark.
Best of luck!