What Color Is Your Singlet?
Do you know your lactate from your pronate? Your swing gait from your heart rate?
Cool down by taking the runner’s quotient exam.
I have never been a fan of those lists that begin with “You know you’re a [fill in the blank] if you . . .” The lists were getting a bit too specific with titles such as “You know you’re a conservative-leaning Northeasterner who loves food reality shows, indie folk music, baba ghanoush, and Scrabble if you . . .”
Plenty of lists address “You know you’re a runner if you . . .” I try to cast a larger net and include everyone from the competitive female 50K runner to the 5K guy in cotton socks and a cutoff sweatshirt within my definition of runner. I figure if you golf, you’re a golfer, if you shoot skeet, you’re a skeet shooter, and if you run, you’re a runner. But if you’re a golfing, skeet-shooting runner, well then I’m not sure what you are.
Runners come in various types, and that’s no truer than nowadays. I admit to being one of those old-school runners who didn’t initially welcome the more recent running boom. The first running boom in the 1970s (which I admit to being a part of) brought runners forth from the darkness and included large doses of obsessive and eccentric behavior along with a competitively hard-core approach to running. Fitness was a byproduct and not a focus. We were viewed as being on the fringe, if not a tad unhinged.
R.Q. Test
Scoring:
One point for A
Two points for B
Three points for C
Four points for D (and no need to Google until the quiz has been completed)
No points if none of the answers applies to you.
Extra-point questions are worth a single point.
Choose the answer that best applies to you:
- When you meet someone for the first time who appears to be a runner, you:
- Don’t ever think about who might be a runner because you’re a runner who doesn’t appear to be a runner
- Look to see whether he or she is wearing running shoes
- And then look to see whether the person is wearing a running watch
- And then hope he or she first asks you whether you’re a runner
- You’ve been to a track:
- Because you were there to watch a high school football game or the band
- To run laps so you know how far you went
- To do a workout, but your speed work is predominately done on the roads and trails
- Weekly during racing season, and you often do at least 10 Yasso 800s1
- When a running injury may have emerged during a run, you:
- Schedule a doctor’s appointment within one hour after the run
- Decide to take a week off and see how it responds to rest
- Elect to rest from running but first determine which cross-training option will not aggravate the pain
- Ignore the pain and load up on ibuprofen and run, limp, or crawl through the injury for at least three months before ultimately seeing a doctor
- Extra point: Continue “running” to near the date of the doctor’s appointment and cancel at least once before finally going.
- When a running magazine arrives with its seasonal review of new shoes, you:
- Put it aside to peruse at your leisure
- Thumb through it to see the latest shoe colors and designs
- Experience a faster heart rate and sweating palms, and you immediately read it in its entirety
- Don’t bother reading it because you’ve already researched upcoming shoes in depth online, printed out the information, and have calendared the release dates of two or more models
- Zero points: You don’t subscribe to a running magazine
- In your house you have:
- A framed picture of yourself during or after a race
- At least one training book
- And at least one unopened box of your favorite running shoes
- And at least one running-related poster on the wall and a location for old race numbers with your race time written on the back of each number
- When traveling by airplane, you:
- Take no extra precautions with your running shoes and clothing
- Make sure you don’t pack your running shoes within checked luggage
- And you also don’t pack your running clothing within checked luggage
- And you also take on board at least two running magazines or a running book to read on the plane and a tennis ball or pillow to sit on should your piriformis act up