On The Run

 

Living where I do it is fairly common to see people of all ages out running; morning and evening. There are lots of good places to go for a run, if that's what you are into. When in Venice I did wonder where people would go to stay fit. There was a small gym next to my hotel that had the usual equipment but with the canals and narrow streets it seemed unlikely that anyone would be out pounding the pavements throughout much of the city.

One afternoon however I spotted several people running along the Viale Vittorio Veneto, a path that has the lagoon on one side and three public parks. As I was seated looking out to sea I saw that the runners were doing circuits of the parks and covering quite some distance. I took a few photos of some of them but really the only decent shots were the first two above because he was running anti-clockwise and so I could photograph him running towards me with the landmarks of St Marks and San Zaccaria in the background. Often when I am doing this type of photography I try to be a little discreet however with this guy I was quite brazen, after all I could not hide what I was doing; I had a big white zoom lens pointing at him after all. On one of his passes he acknowledged me with a nod so I felt OK that I had not intruded too much.

For the third image I was taken by surprise, I was actually trying to photograph a man and his dog who was walking away from me along this incredibly narrow street, I had looked down to adjust the settings on my camera and as I looked up I saw this young woman hurtling towards me, and breathing hard as if she was being pursued by the hounds of hell. She had a really strained expression and she was sweating profusely. Unlike the runner in the previous shots she did not seem comfortable and she did not seem to be getting any pleasure from her exercise. I could see from further along the street that she was not being chased by anyone or anything and from her attire it was clear that she was purposefully exercising. As I often do when I see the pained expressions of folk out running I wondered why do people put themselves through this???

On a different note the final picture below is included as an amusing postscript. Here I was, walking through Venice when a man walks past wearing a jacket with PARIS printed across his back. It struck me as amusing and ironic so thought I would tag it on.