I’m a runner.

Runners are strange creatures. Runners are not going out three or four days a week for two or three miles of jogging. No, that’s a jogger. Runners run thirty or forty miles a week to prep for a three mile race. They wear hundreds of dollars of electronics to analyze heart rate, splits, distance, time, VO2, temperature, altitude and calorie consumption. They arrange the songs in their i-pod according to which workout they’re planning. They obsess over training plans, long runs, tempo runs and fartleks. They’ll spend a hundred dollars for shoes they will get rid of in three months.

Runners are addicts. The hardest part of any training plan is not the hard runs or the long runs but the no runs. The most common place for a runner to blow his race is the taper or rest phase just before a race. A twenty mile training run is no big deal but, not running for two whole days in a row will drive a runner crazy.

Runners often look like normal people but, don’t be fooled. They’ve got tape on their nipples and lubricant in places you don’t want to know about. They think ice baths are a good thing, eat salt straight, obsess over little twinges in their muscles but don’t stop running just because they have the flu and it’s snowing out.

The other day I locked myself out of my truck at work. What would a normal person do? I don’t know but, I got a ride home and the next day ran the twelve miles into work with the spare key. This is runner logic. Anything and everything can be an excuse to get a workout in. Like I said, runners are strange creatures.