‘What’s Happening Behind Me Is None of My Business,’ Says Earbud-Wearing Man Running With Flow of Traffic
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A local runner doesn’t know what dangers might be approaching him from behind and doesn’t care to know, Dumb Runner has learned.
“What’s happening behind me is none of my business,” said Tim LaHaye, 34, by phone midway through a six-mile run on local streets and roads. “What do I care?”
LaHaye, an avid runner who habitually listens to music or podcasts via earbuds when he runs, delivered his remarks from a winding rural road, with the flow of traffic—another of his habits.
“I’m the sort of person who prefers to focus on what’s ahead,” he said, as a driver crested a hill and swerved into the opposing lane to pass him. “Not what’s in the rearview mirror.”
He paused.
“Not that I use a rearview mirror when I run,” he added. “I don’t. Because that would show me what’s approaching from behind me, such as cars, trucks, vans, cyclists, and so on. Which is none of my concern.”
LaHaye dismissed suggestions that running with one’s back to oncoming traffic is needlessly dangerous and, often, against the law.
“I believe it was St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas who wrote that ‘an unjust law is not a law,’” he said, apparently oblivious to the line of vehicles approaching him from behind.
“In a way,” LaHaye added, “I’m striking a blow for justice.”
“They should put that on my headstone!”
