Why Run?

I like to run.  I haven’t blogged about it much, because I’m annoyed with running right now.  My last race (before today) was a half marathon.  It was great, I felt great until afterwards when my left hip started to hurt and it has not stopped for 2 months.  I haven’t run for 2 months until today.

I used to be the runner in the family until I inspired my darling husband to take up the cause.  Now he’s the runner.  I’m not going to pretend that this doesn’t annoy me, because it does.  Running was MY thing.  This happens to me all the time.  If I catch a cold, then everyone in my house has to have a cold and MY cold doesn’t matter anymore.  It’s not fair (Waaaaaa).

My husband is really fast.  He says that he likes to run because it’s something that we can do together.  The only thing we do together is drive to the race and then drive home afterward.  He’s fast and I’m not.  He says the best part about running is passing people.  He called it “the best feeling ever.”  I just look at him, annoyed, a little side eye, really?  I wouldn’t know…

He signs me up for races ALL THE TIME.  If it weren’t for his enthusiasm, I may have given up this running thing a LONG time ago.  I ran in a 4 mile race today and it wasn’t too bad, thank God for muscle memory.  I was definitely in jog mode and not race mode because I’m nursing this left hip, so I was able to look around and observe.  It dawned on me that so many runners haven’t the faintest idea that there is an etiquette to running in a race.  They have no idea that they are being incredibly annoying to the rest of us.

1. If you are slow, like me, start in the back of the pack.  About 2 minutes before the start of a race, my husband gives me a kiss, and then maneuvers his way to the front of the racers and I maneuver my way to the back.  This is what he refers to as “running together.”  It makes sense, though.  The fast runners are really serious about the race.  There are no tutu’s or costumes in the front.  All that shit would create drag and slow them down.  Slower runners should make way for the faster ones.  They earned it.
2. If you are walking in a race, that’s totally OK.  I’m not kidding.  Walkers welcome!  Just stay to the right.  Not in the middle, not on the left (maybe in England?), but all the way to the right.  That way the faster runners can easily pass you.
3. If you and your 20 besties want to sign up for your first 5K, do it!!  Just don’t run/walk arm in arm spreading out across the entire street.  You are adorable with your matching shirts and Superman compression stockings, but you are in the way, even for me, the slower runner.  Move it over to the right, bitches.
4. If you drop something and stop abruptly in the middle of a huge pack of running humans, you are about to eat pavement and it tastes like defeat.  Secure everything to your body before the race, if your tutu falls off mid race, it’s meant to be.  Leave it and keep moving.  If you HAVE to stop, you better pull over to the right first.
5. If you are a faster runner, don’t be a douche to the slower ones.  Yes, you are a gazelle, sure-footed, weaving in and out of the masses, but you elbowed me and that guy with CP, nearly knocking him over, so that makes you a douche.  No PR (personal record) is worth taking out the disabled along the way.
6. Running should be fun, don’t be so serious.  Smile, wear your stupid tutu, your costumes, be cordial to your fellow runners, help someone who falls, encourage the kids, the elderly, but not in a condescending way.  Just be joyful.  When you finish running, you should stand near the finish line and cheer on the slower runners.  No one does this, but more people should.

If it wasn’t for my hip hurting and the fact that I am perpetually slow, I probably wouldn’t be so annoyed with running, runners, my running husband, but I also wouldn’t have put much thought into running etiquette.  You’re welcome.  Now where’s my Ibuprofen?