Last weekend I was running the bridges loop in downtown Portland, and I realized that I had crossed paths with several people twice in my run. It got me thinking about how I had picked to run the route counter-clockwise, while others ran it clockwise. Personally, I deal with it this question a lot - the first day at the Nike berm I was convinced I was disobeying some unwritten rule to run clockwise. Other times, I pick loops based on where I can start uphill and end downhill.
But what would this data look like collectively? Are all people running one direction, or are they randomly picking a direction?
If a runner’s position changes towards the south, his path is drawn yellow. If he’s running north, blue. Here, using the loops of Central Park, we can see that most runners choose to run the loops clockwise, regardless of the direction.
