To ask a man to move at parkrun

[brownbear201]

I am curious as to what you all think of this incident I had whilst running a parkrun this morning. The parkrun I was running was quite a narrow parkrun- it’s an out and back and you run down a track. The track itself is not very wide and faster runners come back towards slower runners on the return if that makes sense. As I was running earlier I was behind a man running with a dog. He was young-ish probably in his early twenties. He wasn’t going super slowly or anything but I wanted to go faster and overtake. However, there were faster runners coming towards me. As he had a dog I couldn’t get past him, if he hadn’t had a dog I would have been able to squeeze past. To be fair he had the dog on a very short fixed lead and was as far left as he could get but because the dog was running at his side I couldn’t get past. I said to him as I was coming up from behind him “Can you move your dog over please?” And he replied “Can you be patient like everyone else?” I ignored him saying this and I was eventually able to overtake him and I heard him muttering about impatient people and just ignored him. A short while later I pulled over to the side to catch my breath- I was out of the way whilst I did this as past the narrow section. He then ran past me again and said “You’ve gotten far considering you were so desperate to get past” I didn’t say anything back to him. Was I right to just ignore him? He wasn’t big or intimidating looking by any means and he didn’t shout but it was the way he looked at me that left me a bit unsettled. AIBU? Was I wrong to ask him to move?

Was the man part of the park run or not?

If it’s narrow, you wait. It’s parkrun etiquette. You know it’s coming up narrow, you eyeball the paces of the ones in front of you, and overtake before you get to the bottleneck. But if you get there and it’s a bit slow, you wait.

And you most definitely don’t overtake then stop cause you’ve just exhausted yourself, learn to pace yourself, you’re going to injure yourself. And I’ll think you’re a bit of a tit.

I have always found parkruns to be super friendly and welcoming.I would say respect for and tolerance for others is the main parkrun etiquette.I think you were a little Impatient !

I thought park run was supposed to be fun but it sounds a bit competitive

So start a new Parkrun.

It's her pacing if she wants to run like that she can

You need to get faster if you want to overtake people without ending up looking like a noob

The OPs may do, my nearest run is a very strict no dog one, it's not a universal rule and personally I prefer no dogs unless the paths are plenty wide enough

It takes a little more room, but dogs can run in pretty close to your leg - a person and a dog is much easier to.pass than 2 people side by side.

But op literally says he was as far left as he could go and runners were coming back the other way. At our Parkrun op was in the wrong, you don't expect someone to literally stop and hike up the bank to let you past! It's understood you have to adjust your pace on narrow bits it's a community fun run not about you going as fast as you can

I did phrase it badly - I should say that the default is to generally allow dogs, and the organisation has specific rules on how dogs should be controlled while at parkrun.

I tend to choose parkruns that allow dogs. I don't want to go do run training and then have to walk the dog after - that would be really annoying. It's also much more fun for me.

I think you were unreasonable not to be patient and wait, and he was unreasonable to make pass aggressive comments.

It is Park Run, remember.
You should have just waited until after the narrow section of the course.
You could also politely suggest to your local Park Run that people with dogs could start at the back for reasons of passing..

Oh how embarrassing, pushing your way past and then being reovertaken 🫠

I dislike dogs at parkrun but I also dislike the runners who can’t pace themselves and sprint past me and then have to stop or walk to catch their breath, meaning I have to keep navigating around them. So you’re both unreasonable in my opinion!

Entitled runner meets entitled runner.

I doubt you will be back to comment OP but … yeah that was quite embarrassing wasn’t it? Not the question about getting past if put politely, but then having to stop and he and his dog overtaking you again. 🤣 I’m a swimmer, if I overtook someone and then they overtook me back I’d cringe 😬 😀
I try not to overtake, we all just work around each other understanding everyone is different.

You were rude to not be more patient. To be honest the dog is irrelevant. The path was narrow, it was difficult to get past. So you wait till you get to a wider bit. 🤷‍♀️.

Though the main unreasonableness is the park run organisers plotting a route on a narrow path. Which I assume is a narrow public footpath, what if a non parkrunner was walking a dog there?

Our local park run has a really narrow section for half a mile and it’s a there and back route so runners in both directions. The first day that park run started there I’d made the mistake of being there dog walking. I had no idea it was now park run territory. It was quite a scary experience with fences and ditches meaning there was only a thin strip of grass either side of the path. I walked on that with my dog on a lead and people still tripped over my dog and kicked my dog!

YABU. You should have only asked the man with dog to move if you knew you could maintain a faster (or at least keep moving) for rest of the run. If you are running and stopping then you shouldn’t be asking anyone to move on a parkrun.

You were rude in my opinion and could have waited. You are not in a paid race it's Park Run where all abilities are welcome. Plus people are still entitled to use the Park Run routes with their dog, kids etc. You can't just ask people to budge over. You need to learn patience and just join competitive races on a designated route if you don't like to be patient. I used to regularly encounter people like you at narrow places when I used to run with my son at Park Run in his buggy. I got pushed and shoved and one woman even fell over the buggy trying to get through a narrow bit blaming me. I just back up and carried on while she whinged over a graze. My advice is that Park Run is not for you.

what did you expect him to do?

Er, leave his precious mutt at home for an hour?

OP you were impatient and he was grumpy.

I made the silly mistake of running with my dog when there was a park run-I wasn’t part of the park run, I was just running in my dog when I realised half an hour later there was a park run. I run there every everyday.
Park runners don’t own the park. I think you should have waited along the narrow path, especially as the dog was on a short lead.

I wish all precious runners would stay home

I’ll be honest, if he had come on asking if he was bu to be annoyed I’d have said he wasn’t just because he was doing everything he could to not be in people’s way and you were still expecting precedence

I’d normally agree with this but the OP wasn’t a faster runner given she later pulled over to catch her breath.