Rail trails and pavement dreams

A great visit to Dr. Bill's yesterday brought a reality check to my body. I was so completely out of whack beyond my normally distorted state. Some snap, crackle and pop later and I was a little closer to normal. A simple question lead to a simple answer, my road bike and I will be intimate friends this week, there will be no dirt trails, switchback climbs or descents and definitely no bumps besides surface cracks in the asphalt. I expected that answer.

A short time later I was out on the TCR for an easy ride along the rail trail. I observed something very interesting last night. I say other cyclists, runners and walkers. My one complaint about our trail is that it doesn't have a center line that may help persuade people to stay on the right side of the trail depending on their direction. In most cases everyone was really good, waving to oncoming cyclists, calling out on your left to riders I was over taking followed by a thank you. Walkers received the same on your left but with some soft pedalling and the thank you, even slower if there were young kids present. But then!!!

As I came up on a pack of runners I swear it became a game of chicken. It wasn't a young group of thug type runners, these were older in their 50's plus. 2 and 3 wide some with their heads down because of the pain (running is painful) some paying attention and watching me coming at them at warp speed (30ish) but either way they seemed to keep their line. I debated about not slowing down an making an example out of one of them for failing to follow trail etiquette but my now semi feeling better neck and back probably couldn't take the hit. Finally a the last minute they shifted over but there were more than one I had to yell "Head's Up!" because they didn't have their heads up.

Is there a different trail rules for pack runners? Do they realize that the rules they follow when running on the road do not apply when running on the trail where there are no cars? Who knows. I was not in a controversial mood so I didn't get into the lecture to the older group of shoe shufflers telling them that "when I was a kid we learned which side of the trail to run on" and continued my try to get the legs feeling better spin. Right side is still very tight. Then nose is healing well.

Training returns tonight, endurance may take over than sprints. The jerking motion is all it will take to knock my neck back into a question mark. The mountain bikes will get some TLC clean up but that's it till sometime next week. I may go through some with drawl. Side note, had my first complete organic salad from my garden last night. It was really really good!!!