Where The Sidewalk Ends

When I really got into running it was during college in Charleston, South Carolina. Despite the fact that the sidewalks in Charleston are a random mix of uneven brick, cobblestone, and old cement ruptured by tree roots growing through them, I typically ran on the sidewalk rather than the street. Streets were for cars, sidewalks for humans. There were a couple distinct incidents that, looking back, would probably have motivated any other runner to switch to the streets. In Charleston, because of the historic nature of those uneven sidewalks it was absolutely common to trip on a regular basis walking anywhere. If you managed not to trip, it was a miracle. And when you did trip, or watched someone else trip, it was always funny. I can’t even count the number of times I tripped, but I can clearly recall the first time I fell. It wasn’t pretty. I went up a curb and came down on the other side flat on my face, bloodied my knees, and scraped up my hands. To tough it out, of course, I kept on running. The other all too memorable running episode I recall from college was when I returned from a run and was walking around my dorm room on Wentworth. One of my suitemates noticed the potent smell of dog poo coming from somewhere. It didn’t take much searching to discover mounds of it caked into my running shoes. I had evidently trampled through a pile of dog poo on a sidewalk somewhere and streaked the stench through Charleston and back into my room.

Living in Annapolis, I continued to stick to the sidewalks as often as possible. I always found myself frustrated when runners would be in the middle of a narrow street I was trying to drive down when there was a perfectly good sidewalk they could be on. For the life of me, I could not understand why they wouldn’t just hope on the sidewalk to let a car pass. This is something I still struggle with. However, after spending months and then years running on the sidewalks, I started switching to the street. Perhaps it’s because I’ve had a few more falls over uneven sidewalks. Or maybe I prefer not to dodge dog walkers. It could be that in my Arnold neighborhood, many cars stick out from their driveway into the sidewalk forcing you to run into the street to get around them anyway. For any combination of reasons, I spend the majority of my running on the street. I do, however, hop on the sidewalk whenever necessary to allow a car to pass.

I’ve pondered this sidewalk topic for some time, trying to figure out if it is a right of passage to switch from sidewalk to street. At one point I thought maybe it’s the hard core runners who stick to the street, but considering I don’t have myself in that hard core category yet, that seems to be a misguided philosophy. I also wonder if anyone else is thinking about this the way I do. Do other runners consciously decided to run on the sidewalk or the street?

The last thing I really have to say about this topic, is that sometimes the sidewalk simply ends. And for all you Shel Silverstein fans, I dug out my dog eared book of his poems and drawings that I had practically memorized as a kid because I can’t think of the phrase without thinking of his poem:

Where The Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.