OKC Manners

I have been reading a book about Korean Culture in preparation for my upcoming trip to S. Korea. In doing so, I have come across distinct manners for their culture. This made me start thinking today, when I was on my run, about distinct manners of OKC that you may not find in other Cities or States. Today I am mainly going to list manners for runners, but feel free to comment to add other OKC distinct manners.

• When running, walking or other wise on foot it is appropriate to wave, smile, say "hi" or at very least acknowledge a person coming past you: Apparently, this is a regional thing for NW OKC, because during the short time I lived in Norman no one waved at me while I was running. I have also noticed this while traveling. As a life time resident of the greater OKC area I am sometime offended when a fellow runner ignores my friendly personality. This happened to me today. I was running my normal route, I saw some of my normal fellow runners-all smiled, waved, nodded, or in someway acknowledged my existence. I then ran by a new mother with a new baby who was, get this, walking in the LEFT lane! (I will touch on this later.) I smiled and said "hi" even though I was very hot and sweaty. She did not look at me. Obviously, she was not from these parts!


• Running, Walking, Biking or otherwise traveling in the left lane of a trail: Do you drive on the left side? Then you should not take up that side of the trail either. I have noticed this with mainly walkers. When in America, travel on the RIGHT side of the road. When I was in England, I ran on the left.....


• Walkers, walking in a horizontal line encompassing the whole trail: This is hard... It seems that some walkers think it is okay to take up the whole trail. These are the same people who are completely offended when they are passed. Why do they think they are the only people using the public space?


• People on the Left side of the Right lane: Follow the rules of the road. If you are slow, you stay to the right. This way faster people can pass you. This applies to everyone at sometime or another. Runners pass walkers and other runners, rollerbladers pass runners and bikers pass everyone on the trail. Stay to the right!


• EXCEPTION: If a person is very tired from their training run, they are exempt from normal courtesies.

Here in the big OKC we are very nice. So everyone will get another chance. Usually people seem to get the hang of things the second or third time I see them on the trails. I hope this was helpful to new comers in the area :).