I waited and waited but it never came…so here it is:
The guy carrying nutrition and hydration during a 5K
The guy who carbo-loads before a 5K…oddly, usually not the same guy as above :-\
The guy talking on his cell phone during the 2nd half of a marathon - as he’s passing you
The really, *really *muscle-bound guy who races in boots with a heavy backpack and comes in last but who gets applause cuz he clearly worked so darned hard
The guy who has awful form, a terrible gait and a look of abject suffering on his face - as he’s passing you
.
how about the guy who runs with what looks like bee keeper netting and a hat, so that you can’t see his face, while holding his two hands in front of him at chin level.
I was doing Shamrock in VA Beach - we are somewhere around mile 23 - this guy starts to pass me - looks strong, has a nice pace going in the late stages, doesn’t seem to be fatiguing. Then his HR alarm goes off - drops his pace. This happened about 5 times until somewhere between mile 24 and 25 I get a bit of a second or third or whatever wind and drop him.
Now, given I was struggling a bit in the last stages and this guy was just pounding the pace, if he had shut the damn alarm off and just run the last 5k or so he probably could have easily blown me off and dropped 5-10 minutes on his overall time.
"The really, really muscle-bound guy who races in boots with a heavy backpack and comes in last but who gets applause cuz he clearly worked so darned hard "
**
Just so you know, that guy is usually a member of our Armed Forces. And generally he is working so damn hard to raise money for his brothers in arms and their families. Next time you see him, make sure you cheer him too.
Oh… back home we had ‘the alien.’ He was this old guy who wore those huge 70’s radio/headphones with two big antennas sticking up while he jogged around in his track suit.
then there is New Years runner girl - the somewhat blubbery-looking runner girls who wear their new matchy-matchy running outfits that they got for christmas with brand new running shoes. they usually run in small groups and are only seen from 4-6 weeks after New Years.
This is no sh*t, the guys I run with at noon time, tell me, back before I started, there was a guy who used to run in his business suit. This was back in the day when everyone wore suits, I guess he would have running shoes on, but literally would run in his suit…that’s pretty gross!
We all know this one, he’s the one that runs the last 50 yards faster than Michael Johnson could run but he can’t break 25 minutes for a 5-k. He’s always a big crowd pleaser though.
Yeah - I figured he was military - he had the look. Don’t know if he was raising money or anything, but I always did cheer him - he was just working so damned hard (no sarcasm here - he was really pushing it, between his size and his gear)
Town I used to live in had this runner who ran in blue jeans everyday. I ran into him one time, and asked him about it, he worked in a shop and was running on his lunch, really fast guy but said he never raced, just ran for the fun of it.
I dropped in on an 8K race in a town on the French/Spanish border last year. A nice run through the town. About 5K into it I’m set to drop this guy, I’m passing him, I can hear his breathing starting to get labored. Then the espresso and croissant that I’d eaten before I decided to race hit my gut like a knife. i doubled over.
The guy pulls away, smiling, and yells back “J’ai soisant ans” (I’m 60 years old). After the race we’re talking, he’s still thrilled to have stuffed me, he’s chainsmoking rabidly…
Not a “regular” (at least not that I know of…) is the guy at the Dallas St. Patrick’s Day 5K run who runs in the Oscar Meyer weiner suit. Now, I’m a crappy runner, but imagine how embarassed and humiliated I was as he came charging past me in the last 250 meters.
a trail run on Mt. Diablo brought out my favorite…grizzly adams beard; cut-off jeans; tube socks (old school, with the 3 colored stripes at the top) pulled up; a wife-beater on top; and, since the race rules suggest you carry your own water bottles, two converted Aunt Jemima syrup bottles attached to belt loops.
*** Group of women ‘running’ at about 4mph taking up the entire path chatting and then they get pissy when someone squeezes by them. **
Ahhh, my favorites. Them and the couple, or just any two random people, each of them meandering just enough to be taking up the entire frigging trail, completely unaware.
A couple of scuffs of the shoes or a snot rocket (performed as I’m coming up behind them, not on them) usually is enough to get their attention. Usually.
** We all know this one, he’s the one that runs the last 50 yards faster than Michael Johnson could run but he can’t break 25 minutes for a 5-k. He’s always a big crowd pleaser though. **
Why is that when you see a man and woman running with a running stroller, the woman is always pushing it?
The woman who is four feet tall, four feet wide and is ahead of you at the 11-12 mile marker on a half? And her friends who are already finished and knocking back some beers?
I don’t know if I’d call him a denizen per se but when I started doing the local runs here in the early 90’s there was a dominant runner named Al who’d win almost every race from 2m to 1/2 marathon.
Every third stride Al would bring his right thumb to his right nostril as if he was going to blow a snot rocket. It didn’t matter the distance or the speed, he’d ALWAYS do that even when he was training. It looked goofy but he could run sub 31 for 10k when he was on so it worked for him.