Lately I’ve been a bit bored running on the treadmill. I’ve started doing the random incline, which makes it a bit more challenging, but overall I’m getting a little tired of the walls of our gym. Since I’m too cheap at the moment to pay for a gym membership elsewhere, I thought I would see about running around in the neighborhood.
Last weekend, R and I drove around the neighborhood across the street as it seemed like a reasonably relaxed place to try. So, I decided to take a walk over there this morning to see if it would be a good alternative for me when the gym isn’t great. The first kilometer and a half was pretty good. As it is Friday morning, the streets are quiet and not many people are out and about.
However, as I went further into the ‘hood, I realized how many subcontinent men were around. Some were hanging out in their cars, others were walking around, some were just sitting outside the buildings. The buildings are generally run down and though some of the cars parked in the streets are nice, it’s basically a ‘ghetto’ area. As I continued walking, a car came up behind me and was driving slowly. The driver had his neck craned to stare at me. I ignored him, but took note of his license plate as I’ve started doing since I moved here.
He drove off and I continued on. In the next block, I saw that he had circled back to have another look at me, so I turned down another street. Just in the next block when I was trying to decide if I should go one more block further into the ‘hood, I noticed a car coming up behind me. Guess who?
I shook my head, made sure he noticed I had my phone, and headed back towards home. It was really frustrating because it could have been a nice alternative to the treadmill, but I will not put myself into an uncomfortable position regularly for the sake of exercise. Luckily, he stopped following me and I managed to get just over 4Ks in with my walking exploration. Sadly, I will not be doing that again.
So, my only alternative is to drive down to the Corniche where it’s generally safe to run or find a way to enjoy my free gym….
<big sigh>
-T
