I figured that instead of writing about running 17 miles in the freezing cold this morning (which is getting old by now), i’d repost one of my favorite lists that those of you that run can relate to. If you’re a runner, you’ll understand just about every one of them…

You Know Your A Runner When ….

• You haven’t purchased ‘regular’ shoes in over two years, but you have 5 pairs of running shoes in your closet and know to the first decimal place how many miles each has on them.
• You don’t know why your husband/wife, who has recently taken up running, looks at you with disgust when he/she first sees you blow your nose in your shirt
• You know that the local park’s bike route leg, which is marked as six miles, is really only 5.88 miles, so you run around the parking lot to make up the difference.
• You skip your favorite ‘adult beverages’ because of hydration concerns.
• You don’t even bother to run if you don’t have time for at least 6 miles.
• You think $80 for a pair of running shoes is ‘not bad’.
• You are up as early on the weekend as you are during the week.
• You have the tannest legs at the pool … from the ankles up!
• You can’t recall what white socks look like anymore
• You avoid buying stick deodorant in gray containers since at 4am you keep getting it mixed up with your body glide.
• You arrive home after a long run. There’s a house full of guests. You excuse yourself, announcing that you just got done your weekly LSD and feel a bit woozy. Everyone stares.
• You can casually (and enthusiastically) talk about both what goes into your body … and what comes out.
• You find it perfectly normal to wear a short-sleeve shirt, shorts with a knit hat and gloves.
• You discover, while in the public shower at the gym with the local muscle heads, you still have band-aids over your nipples.
• Your vacation schedule is a function of when you’ll run your next marathons.
• Upon hearing any reference to a distance, you scream, “I could run that far!”
• You instantly notice trails on the sides of roads you are driving on
• You know the extended forecast on Tuesday for that upcoming weekends long run
• Your family and friends have stopped asking you about your running for fear of your long, detailed answer
• While everyone around you is excited about the upcoming vacation, you are plotting when and where you’ll be able to run
• You talk about bodily functions more than a class of kindergarteners
• Every year you miss the official family Thanksgiving dinner — because you choose to run an annual 5K before hitting the road to travel.
• It bothers you to spend $50 to fill up your gas tank but you don’t think twice about spending twice that much on a race entry fee.
• When one of the decision factors in where to live or which house to buy is “are there any good running routes nearby?”
• When you can actually justify Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day b/c you REALLY DO NEED THE CALORIES!
• You use words like “ten miler” and “easy run” in the same sentence
• You run so much that your family has a separate laundry basket for your running clothes.
• People stop asking you IF you are going to run today, but rather ask you WHEN you are going to run today.
• You have to remind your doctor that you are a runner so that he doesn’t get concerned with your extremely low pulse rate (this always happens to me, they always make a funny comment about being almost dead)
• It’s 10 below zero and you are the only one outside running
• You can’t remember what it likes to actually had 10 toenails or when something didn’t ache
• You are in bed at 8pm, the same time as your kids.
• You’re willing to run at 3 a.m. or earlier so you don’t miss a run
• You measure your shoe’s life in miles.
• On a road trip, you look out the windows, thinking “now that would be a good running course.”
• People in town might not know you by name, but they know you as “the guy that runs everywhere.”

Please share any other good ones your have by commenting or emailing me, I love reading them because it does show what a unique breed of people we runners are. If you don’t believe the above signs, how about this … i’m totally bummed and upset that I started to suffer from the initial signs of hypothermia at about mile 15 this morning and had to turn back to home .. it was only 12 degrees with a 0 wind chill factor. I so badly wanted to push for the 20 miler today, but I guess being safe is more important and finished with just under 17 miles. We’ll get them next week because the frigid weather isn’t supposed to last …

Enjoy this list, hopefully tomorrow won’t be quite as brutally cold and we can make up some of miles …