To Pass or Not to Pass (No, Not Gas!)

A few weekends ago, I ran a 5K and was schooled on passing. I had read in Kara Goucher's book that in races, we need to pass other runners "with authority." I've taken her advice on that before: in a small trail race I ran over the summer, I only passed other runners when I knew I could pick up my pace, sustain it, and re-position myself in the pack.

At the 5K, though, I did some crazy mental cartwheels about it: the woman looked like she was going at about the same pace as me, but I was also at about my maximum exertion level for the terrain. I knew if I passed her, she'd be RIGHT behind me and I wouldn't be able to run any faster, even for a short interval. I decided to try it, but I did it tentatively and without consequence. She passed me all of two seconds later and then, 2 miles later, was the women's winner of the race.

On training runs, I approach passing other runners with a very different mindset. I run at 6 in the morning, and I have profound respect for all of the other runners braving Wisconsin's crazy seasons before the sun comes up.  I very rarely speed up to pass someone if they're close to my pace, and if I'm running without a fixed route (which is most of the time--I use a Garmin or recreate my runs after the fact with mapmyrun.com, instead of leaving the house with an exact plan), I normally make a turn into a neighborhood or an alternate street so that I don't make a fellow runner feel like we're in a race.  I passed two women on a trail the other because there was no other option, and I made a serious effort to pick up my pace on the hill as I passed so that (1) I had that authority and (2) I looked like I was working hard--to me, it's MUCH harder to be passed by someone who looks like he or she is out for an easy, sauntering stroll than to be passed by someone who is booking it.

Today, though, I had no compunctions about passing a man when I realized he was wearing one of those garbage bag-like things wrestlers used to wear to hit their target weights.  Seriously.  I can't even imagine thinking that's a good idea!

Maybe I overthink passing--could be others don't really care (or they're not paying attention to me).  Maybe I could feel a little stronger if I passed people and didn't spend most of my time thinking, "I hope I didn't make that person feel bad about him/herself!" How do other people feel about passing other runners or being passed?