You might be a runner…

This was once a very, very, very long list, so I took out the most irrelevant ones, as they related to me. ‘Cause I can do that.

For anyone who is crazy and obsessed with running, or whoever just loves the sport…

…you can use “easy” and 10 in the same sentence (Yep. And I had heard that before I started running, and it made me gasp.)
…your shoes have more miles on them than your car does
…you go to a golf course to run (But parked golf carts are a pain in the neck…)
…you schedule dates around meets (Not dates so much as other events, but wouldn’t you have to?)
…you find yourself saying, “it’s not really a hill…” (“Just a little bump, no big deal…”)
…you’re running and you don’t know why
…more than half the people you know don’t know what XC is
…you’ve ever relieved yourself (1 or 2) in a heavily wooded area. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be heavily wooded, just somewhere in the outdoors
…Ibuprofen is your recreational drug of choice
…you consider a 15 mile run a good cure for a hangover (You’d be surprised!)
…you waste ridiculous amounts of time engaged in meaningless arguments and discussions about running
…you get hit by a car and you don’t bother to get the license plate of the person who hit you because you still have 6 miles left to go
…the first question anybody asks you once they find out you are a runner is “Have you ever run the marathon?” even if you explain that you are a miler or 5k runner – then they immediately lose interest in the conversation
…You say things like “long and hard” to your female friends and it is not a sexual innuendo
…you are used to the sound of a gun
…you make hundreds of left turns each week (Today, it was all about right turns, actually. )
…you and your teammates have meaningless debates about training, running, and coaching, especially when you’re drinking
…you have running shoes in varying degrees of decomposition: used, well-worn, spent but still good, and useless-but-I-still-wear-them-because-they-still-feel-good (I still haven’t figured out what I’m supposed to do with them.)
…you’ve learned that shopping after a long run or hard workout for food is bad, because when you get home, you realize all you have to eat for the next week is queso dip, mission tortilla chips, and a 5 pound bag of Twizzlers (And Hawaiian Punch, for some reason.)
…you’ve ever found yourself running around an airport thinking “if i can just get in three more miles, I’ll meet my mileage goal”
…you’ve become a member of the “Century Club”, and by that I don’t mean the older brother of the “Power Hour”. (100 miles in 1 week of training) (Singing, “To dream…the semi-possible dream…”)
…you wear sandals despite having the ugliest feet in the world, along with several missing toe nails
…specialty running shops are better than the mall (Duh.)
…you get upset and impatient when results from the race you ran aren’t posted online by the time you get home (Seriously! It’s the information age!)
…you have chafing in strange places. (Not anymore, because I’ve bought bizarrely-named products to fix that.)
…you spend more on training clothes than school clothes. (This is obviously geared toward young people. But running clothes are expensive!)
…there’s nothing like intervals to start the week off fresh!!
…you run when you feel like it, be it 6AM or midnight
…you have the guts to do the steeplechase (More singing.)
…you do anything to try to heal an injury except go to a doctor or athletic trainer because you know they will just tell you to “Stop running.” (You don’t know how scared I was…)
…you can remember a time from a race 4 years ago, but you can’t remember your friend’s birthdays
…Your heart rate is below 50 and you are not dying
…you are not embarrassed to show someone where your hamstring “really” hurts.
…you know splits are something that not only cheerleaders care about
…you have hundreds of safety pins scattered around your house
…you enjoy running in the rain
…you double knot all your shoes out of habit
…you feel naked without your stop-watch on (Garmin, but yeah.)
…you enjoy playing duck duck goose with a youth group knowing you can outrun them- you then get sad when no one picks you as goose (Why can’t I get Sam to race me down the block anymore? )
…when you try to convince people to run a 5k because it’s “only” 3 miles (Guilty as charged!)
…when your friends think they need to practice more before they can run with you
…Every time you see a runner when you’re driving you feel like you too should be running, even if you ran 15 miles earlier in the day (I got jealous of a bunch of training Army Reserve guys I saw running on my way to church.)
…You shower about 12 times a week
…you’re not a masochist, but you enjoy ironing out tight muscles and tendons on a foam roller
…your toenails are black
…you feel lost without your water bottle
…you have running withdrawal if you don’t run everyday
…you are bankrolling your physical therapist’s next vacation (It was worth it!)