You're running on a 10-foot wide path, ahead of you are 3 men, walking 3 abreast, and spread out so that there's no way to pass them with 6 feet of separation.

What do you do?

This is harder than the usual problem I've encountered on my run during the coronavirus rules of separation. I've had 2 people walking toward me and taking up half the path, and I've dealt with it by running off the path, even when it meant that I had to go onto rugged, leaf-covered, sloping terrain. I'd believed that I was sending them the message that they ought to have gone into single file and moved all the way over, and I was protecting myself (and them) whether my message was understood or not.

But I'd also thought that there's something a little passive and cold about just demonstrating that they're not doing it right, so the 3 men walking 3 abreast — at a spot where brush prevented running off the trail — gave me the push I needed to actually speak to people. I do say "Good morning" or "Hello" to people I pass. It's not as though I'm afraid or too snooty to speak to strangers, but I don't like to tell people they are doing something wrong.

So I said what we say when we're biking and I'm on my bike that doesn't have a bell: "Passing on your left." The 3 men turned around and looked a little confused. I said, "Could you go single file and get all the way over?" And: "Thanks."

Ah! That worked, and I was glad to have made a breakthrough. Talking to people. Being friendly, but saying what is needed. Being straightforward. I'm trying to help.

And then there, up ahead, there's a man and a woman — maybe about 25  years old — walking toward me with the man along their right side and the woman walking right down the middle of the path, leaving me maybe 4 feet, so that I could not pass with a 6-foot separation. Before I got to them, I stepped off the path into the leaves to get my distance, but as they passed, I decided to speak to them.

I say (calmly): "You know, it would help if you went single file to pass and got all the way over."

Turning back, the woman corrects me: "You have plenty of room."

I say: "You don't know what I'm talking about?"

And the man, with a completely supercilious look on his face and his hands at eye level and wiggling his fingers in a brushing-me-back gesture, says: "Move along."

My spoken words were — and this is verbatim — "Wow. Oh, man. Okay." My unspoken words will remain unwritten.