Greeting from the street⁹

During a recent run I saw a middle-aged lady running towards me. I was running on the street and she was running on the sidewalk. In order to draw my attention, she left the sidewalk and started running on the street. Then she smiled, raised her hand and said, “Hi!” When men greet me, I say “Hi!” back, but when women greet me, I only smile.

After she passed by me, I turned around and saw that she was again running on the sidewalk. It seems that she went into the street only because there were some parked cars in between us, and she thought that perhaps she would not see me if she remained on the sidewalk.