Coming back on this morning because I’m still feeling raging, upset and shaky about something that happened to me yesterday when I went on a run.
15 or so minutes into the run, so just about past the pain barrier and when it’s starting to feel tolerable, a guy I later see is wearing a yellow dayglo jacket cycles up behind me. “Coming through” he calls. I move to the left.
As he cycles past he makes what to him I imagine sounds like a complimentary comment on my “figure”.
He cycles off. I only grab a very brief glimpse but he looks like he’s 60ish. I am so gobsmacked - this is middle of the day, loads of other people about - that I stop running, and then start yelling and swearing after him, shouting and pretty much incoherent.
He raises his hand, as if to say, “seriously?” and pedals on faster. Two lovely people, a man and a woman, walk up to me and stop when they see how upset I am. My legs are trembling. Another cyclist stops. When he hears whats happened he speeds off saying he’s going to have words
I walk home. My heart is pounding with rage. My run is spoilt. I tell my partner. My 10 year old son asks me what’s happened. I try to explain in a way he might understand. “That’s weird” he says, wrinkling his nose. We agree, it is weird.
I think about it at points during the day. I cannot go for a fucking run in peace, I think. It wouldn’t have happened if my partner had been with me, I know. It is the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. I will remember it occasionally when I go for a run in future.
I never felt threatened. I was not at any point unsafe. But that sexist, arsehole man has invaded my thoughts with his comment, as if he view on my “figure” was an invasion of my time, mind and space was something he was entitled to make.
I hope the guy who cycled after him tore a fucking strip off him.
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