We're bloody miserable bu**ers here in London

Time for a rant. I don't often get annoyed but the prevalence of anti-social runners in London (Embankment and South Bank between vauxhall bridge and tower bridge) is getting extreme as the marathon gets closer.

I know that there are a fair number of weirdos in the city, but a bloke dressed in lycra tights running round the river when its close to freezing is more likely to be a piece of alternative ballet gone wrong (except, and especially on the cold mornings, I don't have the packet for ballet) than anything more sinister - so why do people treat me like I'm a leper when I say good morning?

I thought people only put their sour face on when they had to go to work - now they're infecting their running with their sour Londoner face - help...
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Comments

  • Shufflebuster, don't worry mate. Some people are just sour grapes as you put it. I lived in London for a couple of years and coming from the 'North', I had this preconception that cockneys were arrogant and erhmmm w*nkers! It's not all true at all. Some of my closest friends are now from London.

    You just keep on saying hello to anyone you like. Infact, if it was me, I'd run after anyone who didn't return the acknowledgement, shouting "Hello....Helllo....Hello" untill they ran out of site (cause Im a crap runner)! :)
  • Ta Benz. Wonder whether if I ran clockwise round, rather than anti-clockwise, there'd be a difference?
  • No, I used to live in londodn

    And loads of people talked to me

    but they were ALL weird

  • Define 'weird' !?!?!

    What SB said is true of some (NOT all) runners, though. But then again, that applies to non-runners too.

    Keep going, don't let that get you down.
  • I find most people are fine but there's one guy in particular who ignores me every time i see him so i make a point of getting in his way when i greet him so he has to go round me, childish but it makes me smile.(If you run along towpath between Windsor and Maidenhead on any given afternoon and have been obstructed by a slightly balding bespectacled 42 year old then yes its you!!!!) HELLO.
  • You're right, FLM. There are a number (probably, on average 30 per cent.) who will return your greeting - it has just been this week where the strike rate is down to about one in thirty, which is why I rant now. I have spent time in the past defending the London runner on the forum, but it's been a bad week for friendliness.
  • Social faux pas when running are plentiful.

    I think there is a bats-squeak of opportunity to say hello back, but if you miss it you feel a fool and just keep running. Most people say hello just as they reach your shoulder by which time it seems almost too late to reply! I like to be able to see the people I'm saying hello to! You can be looking, looking, looking for signs of something coming and then just as your take your eyes away there it is; "Hello!"

    Damn!

    But, to generalise, Londoners (and I am one myself) are quite a miserable, over-focused, uptight bunch!!! :-) They always seem to be running away from something - and it can make them quite unresponsive at times. I imagine running on the dales would be a different experience and provoke a different set of responses.
  • actaully, when i run, i always assume i going to get abuse when peeps speake to me, cos i not a small lady


    So i run with head down when i see people
  • oh, and weird means really psychiatric, always make a beeline for me, dunno why

  • Attracting the weirdos - hmmm - I think I'll stick with them thinking that I'm a martian.
  • See you aint talking to me then
    you must be normal:)

  • OMM, running away from something?! I always thought they were always running TOWARDS something! I actually do agree with your generalisation.

    SB, let's just then put it down as a bad week! Or maybe people are getting tenser as the marathon approches ?! Maybe not.

    HiT, oh dear, so you think we all need locking up ?! Even worse than I thought!

    number 3, I like your 'system' !
  • Probably a bad week. Or maybe it's that third arm I grew on Sunday that protrudes from my forehead...?
  • I dont darlings

    but the sort of people that talk to me are odd

    You can just tell
    maybe its me
  • ok, im clearly a teapot
  • ...tip me up and pour me out...

    a teapot?
  • In my experience inner London is worse - here in the suburbs everyone nods or says "hello", and even running home from work I get the same 20 minutes into the journey. The only place I haven't got a response was in Hyde Park.
  • Sure you weren't talking to a horse?
  • Im scared of them, so no
  • Shufflebuster you obviously dont run when Im around, but then I don't do the Thames loop (Tower Bridge to Vauxhall and back) very often. But the few times I have done it I would agree, I made a point of trying to say hello to as many other runners as I could when I have done this route. Some respond some don't. But I would agree that you get a better response from those you either overtake or who overtake you than from those going in the opposite direction.
  • Dont know if id have had the nerve to run living in londodn

    You see, there are BIG people in wales
  • Sythree, is that what you meant by hosses?
  • In hammersmith the parks are so small I'd run round them about 50 times to do my daily run. Glad I'm living in MK as there plenty of nice green grass! Moooooooooo
  • I live near Hammersmith and from Hammersmith bridge there is a very long towpath along the Thames. I think your daily run be of ultra-marathon proportions if you followed it all the way.
    I am a Londoner and I would not consider myself any more unfriendly or friendly than anybody else. I get extremely bored with being expected to apologise for being a Londoner. I certainly find that most people return my greeting when I am running. Perhaps the people who do not return your greeting are people from outside London who have convinced themseves that everybody down here is "a miserable, over-focused, uptight bunch". We are not.
  • Excuse me Scalded Cat, this is an anti London thread. If you don't have anything negative to say about London, please leave!

    Jesting of course. I'm sure most Londoners are cool and relaxed. It's just that half of them are on drugs, whilst the rest are either zoned out from work, or the tube or a foriegn and don't understand much English and are looking at the sights! ( I include scousers in the foreign bit)
  • Shufflebuster, I might well have passed you on Sundays as part of my usual route coincides with yours. I just don't bother greeting people anymore because my reply rate was probably 1 in 100. If people greet me I am so astounded I respond overly enthusiastically. A couple of Sundays I did a 13 mile run and got three greetings - an all time record.

    I run the route anticlockwise. That may be it.
  • I got a mouthful (or is that eyeful) of abuse from a london dweller on another thread for suggesting that Laaahndoners were a bunch of miserable buggers. Good to see it isn't just me that gets the stink-eye when i nod/ speak to other runners.

    I did get a rather heart smile and wave this morning from a fellow near Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, at arounf 08.40 so if you contribute to these pages, thank you for restoring a little bit of my faith in humanity.

    the rest of you need to raise your eyes and open your minds a bit!

    the bat
  • shufflebuster/ratcatcher,perhaps we just recognised you...:-)
    i run that route a fair bit at lunchtimes and nights
    my unscientific survey suggests that
    a) in the dark,female runners don't say anything to anyone,howver friendly,probably sensible.esp if on own.
    b)everyone much friendlier in daylight and warmer weather,but too many tourists on south bank for summer lunchtimes to be too friendly,back to scrum training sometimes..
    c) south of river embankment less friendly than north,especially battersea park for no good reason,loosen up there,not everyone's a mugger.
    d)lots of people looking like v serious runners not very interested in greeeting anyway vs lowering pb for bridge segment...or have no puff for greeting.
    i will keep greeting but since i also mostly run anticlockwise,rc,perhaps i won't be greeting you,sorry.i will be out latish sunday night again(7-10ish),battersea to london bridge and home via putney bridge.see you there!!
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