How to Annoy Other Runners

Towards the end of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon, I sure noticed a lot of annoying runners. Now I’m willing to concede that perhaps I was a little cranky from being so tired, sore and chafed and you probably don’t make the best assessments of others at mile 23 of a 26.2 mile race. Nevertheless there are some things that other runners do that just flat out annoy me. Since I assume that no one wants to intentionally annoy me, I’ve taken the liberty of putting together a list of the things that you all probably do that just annoy the crap out of me. Please try to work on improving yourself for my benefit.

Let’s start with the worst offenders:
Runners who run 4 wide across the street and then all hold hands to finish together. Forget the fact that they’re blocking my way, the blatant lack of competitive spirit in these folks (“Hey, let’s all hold hands and tie!”) is just un-American and borders on being downright French in nature. If you do this, you disgust me. Man, quit being such a sissy!
Runners who are in dire need of medical assistance. These people make me feel guilty, like I’m a bad person for not stopping to help, and I don’t think people should make me feel that way. It’s not very considerate of them. At least I took the extra effort to hurdle you instead of just stepping on you. Man, quit being so needy!
Runners who are faster than me. Annoying! Especially those runners who wait until we’re 20+ miles into the race and then go breezing by at a 7 minute pace. That’s just baffling. If you can run that fast at mile 20 then how is it that you’re only now just passing me 3 hours into this race? Man, quit being so fast!
Runners that swerve a lot. Have you ever run behind someone who does this? It wears me out just watching them meander back and forth across the street, not to mention how difficult it is to pass them. If you ever see anyone doing this, you have my permission to punch them in the back of the head, tell them karma sent you.
Runners that throw their empty Gatorade cups into my path. I swear if you get any of that pink juice on my nice new running shoes I will lose it. Man, quit tossing that crap at my feet!
Runners who are slower than me that take the inside turn on a corner directly in front of me. This is annoying to say the least, and infuriating to say a little bit more. It’s the kind of thing that makes a grown man want to kick a llama in the head. (Come on, someone had to pick up the llama hating torch and run with it, no?) Man, quit getting in my way!
Runners that seem like they want to run with me but insist on being a half step ahead of me. I totally called dibs on this annoying practice. Man, quit stealing my bit!

Though I’m sure there are heaps more annoying things that you all do, I don’t want to overburden you, so just work on these things for now. For my part I will try to be a little more tolerant and I’ll work on some of the things that I do that you might consider annoying: Wearing a disturbingly bright shirt, spitting straight up in the air, running with my arms straight out, making it look easy, and no-look snot rockets.