What I think about when I'm running past people

This morning I hauled myself out of bed at 6 and went up to the river to run intervals past the Museum of Asian Civilisation.

That's quite appropriate, because I'm in Asia, but possibly quite inappropriate, as there's nothing civilised about running intervals.

I plodded up to the river at a slow pace, and then sprinted from the bridge down to the Fullerton, making grunting noises and sweating as I charged along. Then at the Fullerton bridge I'd come to rest, jog slowly back to where I started, and then do another sprint. There's not many people about that early in the morning, but there's always a few joggers out there. I hope they understand what I'm doing. I don't have the opportunity to stop and explain (and that would be quite odd too). I often worry that people think I'm some kind of sexist pig.

It always seems to be the way that a woman will go past me as I'm approaching the start of an interval, and then I'll sprint past her, and then come to an almost-halt again, as if I couldn't stand the thought of a woman running faster than me. So a rather inept sexist pig, or at least one with little stamina.

Unfortunately, if I run up to a woman in the pre-dawn and wheeze hoarsely at her that I'm not being sexist, I expect adverse consequences.

It's no better when I run past a man though: they just look like they're going to kill me. Apart from the guy practising tai chi - who is, ironically, the only bloke there with a sword.

Thoughts like these run through my head. They probably aren't the most helpful ones to have when I should be concentrating on running and breathing and other complicated things like that.

Perhaps it's time for me to start bellowing as I run along, to keep these extraneous thoughts away. Or then maybe I'll have some more problems to deal with.