Stone Mountain Enclave Rules (finally)

So repeating some of last weeks’ posting, we had this group of runners, that wasn’t really a group, and didn’t have a name, but did have some informal organization in the form of rules. The rules were unspoken and commonly understood by the old-timers. Rookies only learned the rules through their unintentional infractions and incurring the resulting verbal harassment by members of the group. So then, what were the stinkin’ unspoken rules?

1. The first mile was always a warm-up. Thou shalt never begin the serious part of the workout during the first mile. It simply made good sense, especially since many of us were reaching middle age. To immediately dive into a hard workout was to invite injury, and friends don’t let friends injure themselves. The first mile was always held at a conversational pace, and anyone who pushed that pace was verbally castigated by the rearmost members of the pack. “Where the hell you think you’re going, ass-h**es! Slow the F down!”

2. Workout proposals were discussed during the first mile. It was considered bad form to simply bolt into a hard workout at the first mile mark without announcing your intentions. Runner’s etiquette dictated that you state your proposed workout so that others could invite themselves along or propose alternatives. It was the friendly thing to do. After all, if you wanted to run alone, why did you show up to run with us in the first place? Oftentimes we’d split into multiple workout groups depending on the number of proposals and according to ability. There were always a few who were just out for a long sociable slow run who would do exactly that.

3. The day’s route was also discussed during the first mile as a subset of the workout discussion. A friendly sociable person invites their friends to weigh in on the route as well as the workout. There was the 2-mile dead end road, the 5-mile loop, the 8-mile loop, and the 10-mile bicycle trail to the high school, and every combination thereof to get whatever distance you desired. There were also numerous trails available in the park, but these were rarely used on the weekend. The weekend runners were wary of the trails. Hal L. said he trained too hard and too long to waste his efforts by spraining an ankle on the trails. One of the few times Mike L. ran the trails he fell and cracked his head open on a rock, which cut the run short (major foul) and necessitated a trip to the emergency room for stitches. Mike used to trip on the tiny crack between segments of the sidewalk, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that he fell.

4. If you decided to run with whoever was doing the easy sociable run that day, it was also against the rules to pick up the pace unannounced. It was socially unacceptable to surreptitiously pick up the pace and try to lure the slower runners into something faster than was their intention. If you wanted to pick up the pace, that was fine, but you had to announce your intention so that you wouldn’t screw up the other fellow’s workout. And when you picked up the pace you needed to mosey off significantly faster than the slow folks. It was against the rules to pick it up a little bit and just hang-out there 50 to 100 yards in front, and thereby entice the slow folks into more workout than they wanted that day. If you announced that you were going to pick it up, you had to so significantly, and it better-by-god be significant enough that you eventually disappear around the bend.

5. It was well known and understood that runner’s lie like fishermen, but this was only appropriate behavior at the starting line of races. Workouts were a whole ‘nuther kettle-of-fish. When proposing a workout pace we insisted on honesty within 10-15 seconds per mile. It wasn’t fair to trick a buddy into running a pace faster than what was originally proposed. If you said you were going to do a 4-mile pickup at 6:30/mile pace, then etiquette required that you attempt to do exactly that so you didn’t trick a buddy into doing something too fast and might get him injured. It was okay if you were feeling good and having a good day to go a little bit faster than announced, but if you went too fast you would get your butt chewed out. Theoretically, we didn’t race during workouts, but our workouts were hard enough that they often felt like race-worthy efforts.

6. Everyone understood that you never asked anyone to ease up so that you could keep up. The fittest runners had longer and faster workouts, and were never compromised by those who weren’t at the same fitness level. Everyone had different constraints on their training time due to job, spouse, school, kids, and whatever else was in their life. None of us was running professionally. None of us was running up to our ability due to training constraints. Everyone did what they could. No one was asked to do less than they could.

7. Conversation during a run always leads to BS. Marvin H. had a reputation for being full of BS. At the beginning of a run when you heard Marvin H. speak, you had an obligation to call out “BEEP, BEEP, BEEP”, and excuse yourself for not turning off your BS detector. We would all then reach for our waistbands to turn off our virtual BS detectors and someone would say, “Go ahead, Marvin. It’s safe now.”

8. At the end of the hard portion of the run, if anybody was in sight you were obligated to mill about or run back to pick them up so they could join you for the warm-down. It was against the rules to run hard all the way to the cars. If you were in sight of the leaders when it was time to warm-down, you had earned the right to be included in the warm-down and finish the run with the lead group. The last 1-2 miles was always run slow and easy so that nobody in sight got left behind. Also, friends don’t let friends get injured, and not warming down from a hard run was to invite injury.

9. And finally, the only real rule was, “There ain’t no rules!”