What is a REAL Runner….

We were out for our run last night and we were slowly gaining on a couple in front of us. They were dodging all the water spots as we were and at one point they moved to the left, and the lady saw us coming so she mentioned this to her partner and as we went by he said, “what was that… oh, here comes some REAL runners…” and my immediate thought was sadness that they would not have regarded themselves as REAL runners… I wondered why they would have thought that and I decided that is something i needed to write about.

A secondary thought came to mind and that was surprise that they thought we were actually REAL runners… if you saw my shuffle you would wonder what i was, i don’t look fast or slow, just very shuffly… so i was kinda excited to be thought of as a REAL runner… 

So what is a REAL runner? i believe that once you lace up your shoes and head out the door with the mind set to start running, you are a REAL runner… I don’t want to get caught up in the semantics of who is a jogger and who is a runner, when all we want to do is get outside and get active for what ever reason, at what ever speed, in what ever fashion… We are what we believe and if we believe we are out running, we are REAL RUNNERS!!!

What i sometimes find is that we judge the people we encounter along the trails and instantly compare them to where we are or where we think we are… For example, we pass some runners so we must be faster… but we don’t know their story… have they just run 49km and are on their last km…. have they just completed 10 x 1km tempos and are heading home… have they just broken up with a partner and they just needed to get out and move to stay sane…

We need to remember that when we pass people along the trails, we don’t know their story, we don’t know where they have come from, but they are out there, their shoes are tied and they are REAL RUNNERS…

TOTB: Don’t  compare yourself to others… this is YOUR journey, your training, your goal and your run… do it for you and enjoy every step of the way… there will always be others faster and there will always be others slower so just be THERE, where ever you are…

BOTB: Don’t compare yourself to others… i remember my first Half Ironman and seeing all the different shapes and sizes and ages and thinking that i should be able to do this if everyone else could… so i see this woman, twice my size, SOLID and i think wow, I wonder how she will do on the run… well i came almost last in the swim, and she tore up the water, i came slightly faster in the bike, and she again tore up the road, so when i finally got to run, i had no chance what so ever to catch her amazing lead… don’t compare yourself to others because this is YOUR journey, YOUR training, YOUR goal and YOUR run…