Almost got hit by a car this morning

And it’s time to learn how to drive, run, and walk more defensively, and to curtail my emotions while on the road. 

I was just on a morning medium-pace run at Orem Community Park. 3 miles, because I had hit the snooze button, and had thus lost the time to run my full 5. At the park, because the grass is easier on my knees and I’m more likely to be OK when doing my long runs on paved trails, because my knees take less of a beating during the week. 

I was doing figure eights around the park in order to make my run more interesting. This involves one street crossing because there is a road that goes through the middle of a park. But the cars are usually slow and super wary of pedestrians, since they’re in a park. 

Not this car. 

This white sedan is coming pretty quickly, but I’m not thinking rationally as I’m about to cross. My thoughts are shifting from “holy crap I’ve gotten fat; I need to up my mileage, lift more, and clean up my diet” and “am I going to keep this schedule when it gets dark and depressing in a month from now” and “I hate this, I am always late and running behind just like today” and “I hate how slow I’ve gotten” and “gosh why is it so hard to run such a slow mile” and “holy crap Chris Chan is in prison because EWW” to “I hope this idiot is actually going to stop, because I’m crossing.” 

This was my first mistake. Note that this is an emotional thought, spurred by irritation at a Utah driver who was clearly speeding through a park filled with pedestrians and pets. Also, “idiot” is not a nice term — maybe someone was about to have a baby or the person was super late somewhere — but when you’re running and feel exhausted, your mind isn’t always kind. All things considered, Utah drivers are generally pretty terrible (and I’ve got some work to do myself) but I really hate drivers who treat the roads like it’s their own Grand Prix. I almost collided with a driver merging onto the I-15 a few days ago because they were blowing by me as I was trying to merge, quick enough to where I didn’t see them, and the passenger leaned out the window and glared/smirked at me. It was both of our faults, ultimately. I guess they had right of way but that glare freaked me out. (And don’t get me started on the coal rollers. They do this on purpose. At Sling there was a guy who would coal roll me every time I was commuting back home, at the same on-ramp.) 

The I-15 incident was when I realized that my interval between checking the road and merging is too short. So I have been lengthening that. 

My second mistake was this: It was clear that the driver wasn’t going to stop. In fact, as I got closer, he sped up. And like a moron, I kept going anyway. Why? Emotional reaction, in a split second decision. I was ticked off that he wasn’t stopping, in a public park. He could’ve hit kids, or people like me, or dogs that aren’t on a leash because their owners can’t be bothered. So I guess my limbic monkey brain subconsciously said “let’s go to teach him a lesson” or something dumb, and yeah. He (or she) skidded to a halt at the last second and barely avoided hitting me. 

Then they parked on the side of the road and I freaked out thinking they were going to yell at me, so I stayed at the back end of the park until they left. 

We are all sacks of meat piloted by electrical impulses which are focused on the survival and propagation of the species in a pre-civilization era. In other words, it’s important to recognize when your emotions are getting the better of you. I know I’ve been that driver before, blowing through a crosswalk because I’m late and I’m afraid someone is going to get mad at me. Well, it is time for me to be smarter. 

So, what have I learned? Defensiveness. It is more important to be safe than it is to be fast or punctual. Even if people will yell at you for being 5 minutes late, and you could’ve been only 2 minutes late had you just blown through a few yellows, it’s not worth it. It’s important to keep yourself and others safe. To assume that people will NOT follow traffic laws. It’s frustrating, but it’s the only intelligent thing to do. It’s time to be a lot more careful.