Hungry Runner Girl: Things That Only Runners Understand

Last week a non-runner asked me what I was planning to do for my 29th birthday. I replied that all I really wanted for my birthday was to go on a long run with my running friends. This non-runner questioned why sweating for a few hours while pounding out 16 miles was my idea of the perfect birthday. I told him that there is no better way to start the next year of your life than creating large amounts of endorphins, exploring your city on foot and having great conversations with your running pals.

This friend of mine reminded me once again that we runners really are an interesting group of people.

I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the things runners do that probably seem a little bit odd to most other people.

We plan our vacations around races.  Run-cations are the best.

If you are a morning runner, we choose running over more sleep without even thinking twice about it.

We post our runfies (selfie taken while running or right after a run) pictures of our shoes and Garmin all over social media. Other runners like it!

We drop $100 on a pair of running shoes that are only going to last us about 300-500 miles and we get really excited about it. Those first few runs with a new pair of shoes really feel like you are running on clouds.

We take a big cylinder of hard foam (foam rollers) and torture our muscles with it in order to help us recover quickly and prevent injuries. All so we can get back out there and run hard again.

To go along with the above foam torture, we sometimes sit in a tub of ice water after a long or hard run. Nothing like taking an ice bath after finishing our weekend long run. That has to seem a little bit odd to the general population. 🙂

When you get a bunch of runners together, we can talk about splits, races, workouts, training and runner’s nutrition for hours and hours.

We pay money (and sometimes a lot of money) to go run a lot of miles with a bunch of strangers in a race.

We spend time outdoors running during extreme weather conditions when we should be inside. I always wonder what people in cars are thinking when they drive by me while I am out running during a blizzard.

We sometimes run on a human hamster wheel (treadmill) in order to get in our run.

When we travel, the first thing we pack are running shoes.

We know exactly where our IT bands, piriformis, achilles and plantar fascia are located. We cross our fingers that those areas never flare up.

If we are into relays, we choose to sit in a van with a bunch of other sweaty runners over the course of a few days and miss out on a lot of sleep to switch off running miles and miles.

Towards the end of a training cycle, when we are tapering and running fewer miles for our long run, we say things like, “I am JUST running 8 miles on Saturday.” Just and 8 miles don’t belong in the same sentence if you think about it!

We spend money on Gu gels and other runner’s fuel. It’s bizarre because these packets of energy really don’t taste good (except for the Salted Caramel one).

We are frustrated and grumpy when we are forced to sleep in, take it easy and miss some of our runs because of a running injury.

Just a few miles out on the road can change our entire perspective about things, put us in a much better mood and help us to feel more gratitude.

The things we do to run may sound a little bit strange to non-runners but I’m ok with it. I really like running and runners.