Running While Male

Sorry for the whining. Sometimes you just gotta. 

I just gotta.

I'm also sorry for the offense some may take. I am in the demographic that is not afforded the right to complain and normally I don't. This time I'm doing it anyway.

I really do understand. I am a son, a husband, a father of a daughter, and grandfather of the most beautiful girl in the world. My grandma was my most favoritest person on earth. I like women, and I am sensitive to their concerns. But I feel the obligation and impulse to communicate how difficult it is to run while male. I know, cry me a river.

I understand women's need to protect themselves. I understand women must be vigilant at all times. I understand that women must not let their guards down. However, women's reactions to me have been so severe that it has changed where I run, when I run, and how I run. I now avoid Grand Boulevard, a well-lit, well-traveled street in Greenwood, Mississippi that has sidewalks on both of its beautiful tree-lined sides. It is a popular site for walkers and runners of all ages and . . . gasp . . . genders. Since I have had so many bad encounters on it, I now avoid it as much as possible. I am forced to run it some, however, to get to my beloved Money Road where I can free myself from fright and traffic and people and be in the country in the wide-open spaces. The fright I seek to free myself from is not the fight I have of others, but the fright I cause others. 

I have known for a long time that I scare the bejesus out of women. Before becoming a teacher, I paid the bills by working in the pest control industry. I used to get depressed at how women responded to me. I remember well when mobile phones (not cell phones but mobile land lines) hit the market. In no time, every home had one or three and every woman who answered a knock at the door was holding a mobile phone to her ear. I get it: be safe, you don't know who that is at the door; make them think you are on the phone. OK. It makes sense, but it sort of builds up on you. At least it did me.

But that wasn't the only thing that happened. Virtually every day I had a fright-causing encounter with women. Once, when I was walking back to my truck after inspecting a house for termites, a woman started screaming somewhere nearby, the kind of screaming you hear on those old horror movies. I ran to my truck, jumped in, and sped away finding a high gear, and not even leaving my report slip. Later I learned through a co-worker whom the screamer confided in that she simply saw me and was frightened and began to scream. She looked out her window, saw me in the neighbors yard, and began to scream bloody murder. Thanks.

Another time, I knocked on the door of a contract house. No response. Then I saw an elderly woman peek out a window and the horror on her face so shocked me that I left immediately determined never to return. But my job was to inspect that house, so I made a phone call, talked to the lady, and eventually went back. I don't blame the woman. She should have been wary. But that look of abject terror painted on her elderly, grandmotherly face just because she saw me won't lie still in my mind even now some twenty-five years later.

Back to running. It happens so often that I find myself saying, "Dang it," every time I am out ambulating and see a female. I cross the road, take a turn, do anything I can to avoid them, not so much for their comfort as for mine. I don't want to go through it again, that reaction that makes me feel terrible, that makes me feel as if I have somehow done something wrong.

A few things you need to know. I am a skinny 5'10'' 60-year old white male with a light bone structure and very thin totally white hair. I find it incredulous that anyone could possibly be intimidated by me in any setting. How is it even possible? Maybe I can understand a woman being startled by my presence at night, but this stuff happens in broad daylight on Grand Boulevard with heavy traffic on both sides of the street. 

Greenwood recently built a walking track on the Yazoo River bank and I frequent it with great joy. It gets me out of the traffic and offer a great place to do interval training knowing that cars won't interrupt my efforts. As great as this place is, occasionally I cross paths with a woman. Or two. Often they are in groups, but that matters not because whenever we approach, their cell-phone filled hands always find their ears. I get it. Be safe. But a group of women meeting up with a 60-year old man who is doing an old-man shuffle with enough loud clothes on to glow in the dark? I wear a hunter orange cap, a safety yellow shirt, and shorts that are a bit short. Do I look like I am trying to sneak up on you? Do I look strong enough and virile enough doing my 12:00 minuter per mile shuffle to be a physical threat?

Please understand that I have lived in this town my entire life. I worked pest control for almost three decades, I now teach, and I am on the front page of the paper at least once per year. People either know me personally, or at least have seen my face. I have no criminal record and have not assaulted any one recently. Not in a long time. Not ever. So how do I continue to put fear into the hearts of so many people?

How old will I have to be when this no longer happens? My dad ran until he was 82 and then he walked until the very day he left this earth. He literally died with his running shoes on, and I hope to go the same way. He and I talked about running a often. We talked about racing in the old days, about training, about bad dogs we encountered, and about being harassed. But I never asked him about this one. If I could go back in time, this is something I would change.

Let me tell you one more anecdote. Two years ago, I ventured out of my little town and traveled to the Tanglefoot Trail where I ran a Buddy Bones Marathon (that's code for I did my own race). Somewhere out there all alone I heard some voices around a bend I was approaching. Women!! I scooted to the far right side of the trail and sort of slumped over to make myself look even smaller and less threatening than I already am. When I rounded the curve, I encountered a group of 6 (sorry for the numeral. My computer will no longer type the letter needed to write that one out) women. It was 6 of them. 6. Did I mention there were 6 women in that group? When they saw me, every single one of them grabbed a cell phone and put it to her ear. Every one. Me versus 6 women. 

Let's pretend for a moment that I am a serial killer who attacks and murders women on sight. Do I for a single second look like I could take one 6 small children much less 6 grown women? Come on. I averted my eyes, ran off the right side of the trail and said narry a word. Later, maybe fifty yards later, I looked back and low and behold one or two of them were still looking back at me with cell phone still in hand and still to ear.

Ladies, I apologize for your fear. It is well earned I am sure. But when you know you are safe, why don't you act like it? Please consider the feelings of your fellow human beings. True, I don't know what it is like to run while woman. But neither do you know what it is like to run while male. It is painful, frustrating, and at time insulting. I keep taking it, however, and will continue to take it because I partly understand your fear and because running means too much to me for me to be dissuaded by anything you could possibly do to me. And if you know me and bump into me while I am out shuffling, don't bother speaking to me because I will not respond. I will be too busy averting my eyes, looking for a route away from you, and hunching over to look smaller. Don't take it personal. It's just what I have to do to survive running while male.