Why I hate sidewalks

I was running through the park one day a while back and even through the music on my headphones I heard someone yell at me from their car window to "try the sidewalk!"  It really pissed me off. Yes, there was a sidewalk I could have been running on.  And yes, I was running on the road.  But the road was PLENTY big enough and I was running so close to the edge that part of my foot was practically on the grass - on the opposite side of the road from the car. 

Though I am a huge proponent of putting sidewalks everywhere in our community (particularly down the half mile stretch of main road that I am forced to run on from my neighborhood to get anywhere else), and I do choose sidewalks over a busy road any day, if I get the chance to safely run on the road, I take it.  Why?

1.  The asphalt road is about two and a half times softer than the concrete sidewalks.  That makes a big difference on your knees and ankles and hips when you are logging many miles.

2.  Sidewalks are often uneven.  And though you may have a ton of reflective gear on so that cars can see you while you are running in the dark, that doesn't mean you can see the road/sidewalk in front of you very well.  Which means you might trip and fall due to that uneven sidewalk.  And then you might be glad it is dark so that there aren't many people able to see you fall.  And you might be glad that you were able to at least get your hands up so that your face didn't hit the ground.  And then you might have to think about whether you should run home to clean your wounds, but you will probably decide to finish the run and shake it off.  And then it might happen that when you are looking for a Band-Aid for your bleeding hand, the only one you find at the moment is a Donald Duck one.  And then your daughter might see it and get a little mad that you took "her" Band Aid.  And after the ensuing "conversation", so you might curse running on the sidewalks even more.




It might happen.