Shéamus said:

Oh, I stopped the loops after a few days. I run on the freeway now, as well as doing some bigger loops around a large parking lot that surrounds a Kroger, and that kind of thing. They’re not always there, but my route takes me behind this lot and a few times I’ve had to run through about a hundred geese. Geese are everywhere here, but nobody seems to know why.

I’ve had a few pointed comments from truckers but I’ve actually been surprised there as I figured I’d get a lot more. One car clipped me with its mirror as it went by, and another, which I can only imagine was driven by a 90-year old, gave me the full horn treatment for 5 seconds before and 5 seconds after passing, even though he had an entire lane to go by! A lot of people here are really poor drivers. I mean, they have enormous lanes to use and they still cling to one side or the other, rarely indicate to change lanes and maintain a pretty aggressive attitude at all times.

It’s not been too bad though - the only slightly hairy point is crossing the freeway. At these times my pace always goes from about 8:00 to 5:45.

I think most of the townsfolk think I’m just some nutcase tourist. Which of course I am. Running in the midday in 100 degrees isn’t something most people can really comprehend as a pastime you’d choose to do.

It’s much, much better than the mile loop. Loops suck. I mean, if that’s all you have, then fine, but I just find them unbelievably dull. I don’t think I could ever do a race that featured loops. Sounds awful.

Shéamus said:

Congrats! 18 days in a row is fantastic. I tell you, you’ll have a hard time stopping after 22. I mean, you could do 25… or 30… or 50…

I like running roads. The freeway doesn’t bother me. The only time it gets a bit dicey is crossing from one side to the other, as said, or if a huge multi-wheeler truck goes by. There’s a point when you’re running alongside those things where you must enter a blind spot and it makes me a little edgy.

Otherwise, I always run toward traffic as this means I at least have a chance of a last-second dive into the hedges if the guy behind the wheel is insane (whereas from behind he can just mow me down if he so chooses) and the freeway here has a little sidelane for people who want to turn and 90 per cent of the time nobody is using that, so I always have a good few yards of space.

It’s worse, to be honest, in the neighbourhood roads, as many of them are only two lanes and as I said people here really don’t seem to live to drive in the middle. I’ve had no problems on the freeway - it’s those side roads where I’ve had people blaring their horns, clipping me and generally acting like they’ve never seen a runner before. Which, judging by the fact that I’ve only seen ONE other runner since I’ve been here, may well be true…

Shéamus said:

Well, if I suddenly stop updating, you know I had a tangle with ‘crazy driver’.

Until then, I’ll do my best to be careful!

Shéamus said:

I do mean a multi-lane divided highway, yes. Not the Interstate. The road I run down has three lanes on each side, so crossing over is a bit like a game of Frogger, trying to navigate your way through six lanes of cars. It’s fun.

As I said, I’ve had less problems there than in the back roads. Again today somebody hugged the white line to the point where I had to jump into the grass at the absolute last second, pretty much as you just described. I couldn’t believe it.