In high school, I would run on the pavement at Deweese Parkway in North Dayton, a few blocks from my childhood home. It was common for me to run at a 5:05-minute pace, which is middle-of-the-pack on a high school track team. I also ran very quietly, not sure why, but if I was coming up on you from behind, I could very easily scare the living crap out of you. It's difficult to yell a warning when you're pushing your limits, so I developed the "scrape the shoe" method as a warning, starting about 20 yards away and continuing until the person would turn around to find out what the noise was and see me coming.
Recently, I employed the same method, but I was walking towards a woman who was walking their dog with her face buried in her smartphone. I wouldn't have really cared all that much if I startled her, but you never know what a dog will do when approached. A couple of scrapes, she looked up, got her dog next to her, and let us by. I'm glad there were no smartphones back when I was running Deweese Parkway. I probably would be the cause of many broken phones.
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