Getting around the gapers

The trip to work this morning was frustrating. I am without either of my 2 carpool partners for the entire week. While enduring the “gapers” who insist on leaving no less than a 7-car gap between them and the car ahead of them, I looked on with envy at those in the “2 person lane.” I know that it seems silly to get bent out shape that the car ahead of you doesn’t close the gap at least a little bit. You ask, “Does it make that much difference?” The answer is YES, it *does* because car after car slips into the gap and the gaper slows down even more to maintain the required 7-car length gap.

While slipping into the gap only to come upon another gaper a couple minutes later, I thought of a 10 race that I did with BoBo and Cindy earlier this year. It was one of the more popular runs, so the runner traffic was heavy throughout. BoBo and I were racing each other and I lost the race to a doublewide jog stroller that was gapping on a paved path that was as wide as the stroller. BoBo squeaked past just ahead of me, leaving me behind the strolling stroller. I was not too happy when he called home to announce that he “whooped me” – by 10 seconds, but “whooped” none-the-less. He even did a littlle victory dance just to rub it in.

I’ve been awaiting my rematch since that race and might have an opportunity to redeem myself this Sunday if he agrees. I’d just do my long (16 mile) run on Saturday to accommodate it. That would probably even up the fact that he hasn’t been training for a race this long. It’s fair, right?

I am convinced that it *is* fair. Have you seen those football players run? Did you see that Redskins player FLY down the 100-yard field yesterday? Nobody could touch him. It was awesome. He found and flew right through those gaps on the field.

I’m sort of getting into this football thing, you know – probably because of the “running” part. I did my cross-training today. I sat on the spin cycle and watched ESPN. They were playing little excerpts from the weekend football games and I found myself watching intently as the pedals flew round and round. It’s good that there were only 2 people in the fitness center when I was there because every now and then I would blurt out “run” or “ouch” or something like that.

And I think that I am getting the idea of the game somewhat. Still, of the pro games, I like the running and the little victory dances that the players sometimes do in the end zone. Could you see an elite runner making that kind of scene when they won a race? That’s probably all we need to do to get more running coverage.

Okay, maybe not.