Flashes of Panic

Everyone’s seen one of those automatic speed-display radar trailers town police departments put out from time to time, right? It’s a little stand with an enclosed radar gun pointing up the road, a sign displaying the speed limit and a marked display showing “your speed” in lights.

Yesterday I was running down the left side of a town road by one of these (on the right) and realized there was an “8” showing on the display. It flickered to “7” and I realized it was showing my speed. I was on the opposite shoulder, though, so who knows how accurate a reading it was getting.

I’ve seen this once before, and that time I threw in a surge and got the sign up to 10. This one was on a downhill. When I realized what was up, I couldn’t resist. I checked traffic, crossed the road and headed back up the hill. When I spotted another break in cars approaching the sign, I turned around and started building to a full stride.

I managed to get the display up to 13 before I backed off. That was pretty close to flat-out, on-my-toes sprinting; 13 MPH is a tick faster than 70-second 400m pace, about a 4:40 mile. (I’ve no idea what the real precision of the radar is. Runners don’t generally talk about pace in those units, though I know one runner who ranks his races by meters per second.) I’ve never run a whole mile at 13 MPH, but I have done 10 miles at a pace that a radar-gun sign would probably round up to 10 MPH.

Now Playing: All Of A Sudden (It’s Too Late) from English Settlement by XTC

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