FTT Off-Topic: A Brief Public Service Announcement To The Gravitationally Challenged People Walking On The YMCA Running Track

Two lanes. Two Freaking Lanes.

(As always, FTT O-T is not about sports and not sorry.)

First off, let me congrat- ulate you on your commitment to fitness. Looking at the size of many of you, this is an overdue commitment, but there you are, on a Monday night in late February, well past the wipeout time for New Year's Resolutions, trudging up and down the track. Good on you.

Secondly, I'm sorry to have to intrude, periodically, on your important conversations with my running. Good conversations are precious, even if they are just with yourself, and far be it for me to spoil your philosophical treatise during your meandering waddle.

Third and lastly, please believe me when I tell you that the only reason I'm on this track with you is that each and every treadmill downstairs has been taken. Which gives me the option of waiting during the very limited time window that I have to get my miles done, before I have to go pick up my daughter from gymnastics, or just hitting this track with you. That's also probably why I didn't look so happy, even before my workout started.

Now, having said all that? I'd like to direct your attention to the sign on the wall. The one that says Slower Runners -- and that's you, honest and for true, in that you could conceivably break into some kind of shambling fall or ooze with enhanced velocity -- should stay in the inside lane. (And hey, no habla anglais? Maybe you could just look at the majority of slow walkers, and do what they do.)

Next, please direct your view towards the ground. No, not the ground directly in front of you; that's purely theoretical, given your ample portions of shade. Rather, further along, the one that neatly bisects the available running space on this here track.

That inner lane is really sweet, by the way. You want to be there. It's got a handrail near the banister, is technically a shorter distance (hey, you're already, um, exercising -- why overdo it?) around the track, and here's the best thing of all -- it's a nice piece of distance away from those people who, I don't know, want to actually run on a running track.

And when you are in that inner lane, guess what else happens? I, The Runner, don't have to perform the Morbidly Obese Slalom some three to four hundred times in the 25+ minutes that I'm going to spend to get my miles done. I also won't wind up having my laps compromised by the constant worry that I'm going to fall into your gravitational well. And you don't have to worry about being startled, and possibly spooked into falling down and causing structural damage to the facility, by (comparatively very) little old me with my unnatural rate of speed.

So, to recap?

The inner lane is your friend!

Walking two and three abreast, like human cholesterol, is actually, um, really freaking rude.

Much more so than the people who keep ducking past you.

So... know your place. Move into it. Stay there. We'll all be happier in the long run. And short stagger.

Thank you, and good health!