Good Morning!

After last week's 17-mile hilly run in the heat, we enjoyed a back-down week today. It was flat, cool, and only 11 miles. We started our run at the Hilton Bayfront, near the Convention Center, headed down along the harbor, around Harbor Island and back again.

A couple years ago, Runner's World magazine did a survey where they asked runners if they acknowledge other runners with a friendly gesture or a "good morning". A majority of those surveyed said they avoided making eye contact or recognizing runners that passed by them. Today, I saw it firsthand. There were two other big running groups training in the area. Many of them passed by without even looking up. I don't always expect a verbal greeting, because let's face it, sometimes people are running too hard to even get a word out between breathes, but a simple nod or wave is good enough.

I told a couple of my teammates about the magazine survey, and we started noticing what they said was true. For the rest of our run, we went out of our way to say "good morning" or at least wave or a nod. I think we broke the ice and our informal survey fared better than the magazine, with more than half of the runners passing us returning the greeting. Give it try the next time you're out there.