Sixteen weeks until race day. Zero acknowledgment that pedestrians, strollers, and dog walkers also have some claim to the same stretch of sidewalk he considers his lane.
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – A local resident training for his first marathon has reportedly begun treating every sidewalk in his neighborhood as a personal, exclusive training course, weaving through pedestrians, strollers, and dog walkers with what several neighbors describe as “a level of tunnel vision usually reserved for people who believe they are the only person who exists on that particular block.”
“I am on mile eight of a sixteen-mile training run,” said runner Colin Fitzgerald, not breaking stride as he offered comment, weaving around a stroller with what its owner described afterward as “genuinely alarming confidence, given how close he actually came to the actual baby.” “I have sixteen weeks until race day. I do not have time to stop and think about, respectfully, everyone else’s specific business on this sidewalk today.”
Neighbors report a noticeable seasonal pattern to the phenomenon, with sidewalk congestion from marathon trainees reportedly spiking every fall as race day approaches, a pattern one longtime resident described as “basically its own weather system at this point, you learn to just watch for it and get out of the way, same as you would for rain.”
Fitzgerald, informed of neighbors’ complaints, expressed genuine surprise that his training runs had drawn any specific notice, insisting he “always says excuse me, or at least thinks it very clearly,” a claim several of the pedestrians interviewed for this piece disputed, with one dog walker noting she has “never once heard an actual audible word from any of these runners, just a kind of determined breathing as they go past entirely too close for comfort.”
Local running clubs have reportedly begun informally circulating sidewalk etiquette guidelines among members ahead of peak marathon season, encouraging runners to use designated running paths where available and to maintain greater awareness of pedestrian traffic, guidelines Fitzgerald says he has read and generally agrees with “in principle, though obviously on an actual training run, in the moment, my main focus has to stay on my own pace and my own splits.”
Fitzgerald’s wife, watching from a safe distance as her husband continued down the block, offered a brief assessment of the entire situation. “He is a lovely person in every other context,” she said. “For sixteen weeks a year, he becomes someone else entirely. I have made my peace with it. I would recommend everyone else on this block do the same, at least until late November.”
Fitzgerald says he has begun mapping alternate training routes specifically to spread his impact across a wider area rather than concentrating on a single overwhelmed block, a compromise he describes as “genuinely considerate, in my own way,” though neighbors on the newly added routes report the same basic experience previously confined to his original block.
Race organizers, informed of the broader seasonal pattern reflected in Fitzgerald’s experience, note that marathon training inevitably produces increased sidewalk and park path traffic each fall, and encourage runners to remain mindful of shared public space, guidance several running clubs say they actively reinforce, with limited but genuine success, among their own members each training cycle.
Fitzgerald, informed his neighborhood has developed its own informal early warning network for spotting his approach, took the news in stride, noting only that “if people are watching closely enough to organize around my schedule, I must be moving at a genuinely respectable pace,” an interpretation neighbors did not necessarily share but also did not particularly feel the need to correct.
With race day now just over two months out, Fitzgerald says his mileage will only continue climbing, a prospect his neighbors have greeted with what one described as “a mixture of dread and, honestly, a small amount of genuine pride, since we did all watch him start this whole thing barely able to run a single mile.”
His wife confirmed she is already planning to be somewhere near the finish line on race day, and admitted, with visible affection despite months of sidewalk chaos, that “whatever this training process does to the neighborhood, watching him actually cross that finish line is going to make every single dodged stroller completely worth it.”
Fitzgerald, informed of his wife’s comment, smiled and, without breaking stride, continued down the block toward mile nine, already several strides past the point where this reporter could reasonably keep pace alongside him.
The interview, by necessity, ended there, this reporter having neither the training nor the inclination to continue jogging alongside a man eight miles into a sixteen-mile run simply to gather one final closing quote.
By the time this piece went to publication, Fitzgerald had reportedly completed the full sixteen miles without, as far as anyone could confirm, a single serious incident, a track record his neighborhood is choosing to interpret as cautiously, provisionally reassuring.
Race day, and the eventual return to a considerably calmer training schedule, remains, for the block, the light at the end of a genuinely long, genuinely crowded sixteen weeks.
For related commentary on singular personal goals colliding with everyone else’s ordinary daily business, see News Satire Websites and What Is Satire?, plus further reading at Satire Website.
Additional coverage at What Is Satire?. More satire at The Onion.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/