I asked a friend if he was going running yesterday…

This coworker and I talk about our runs a lot. He runs in the Houston heat almost every evening after work, goes for 6-10 mile runs on the weekends, and basically makes me look like the world’s biggest lazybones. He only discovered running after the Covid pandemic, but he loves it, and it keeps him happy and relaxed. (And, yes, he planned to run last night.)

I asked him if he considered himself a runner.

He paused.      

“I mean, you are what you do, right? I run…” He stammered. He looked uncomfortable.

I had stumped him with the Great Debate Among Runners.

Am I a Runner?

This one is a hard question for many of us who pick up running later in life. I don’t know about the kids who start running in middle school; I think they grow up thinking of themselves as runners and never have this existential crisis.

I didn’t start running until I was 31 years old, and the idea that I might be a runner is a tough one to wrap my head around. No matter how many races I run, or how many blisters, shin splints, black toenails, or other running injuries I get, no matter how many shiny medals live on my awesome medal rack on my wall; I still don’t feel like a “real” runner.

I think I feel this way because there isn’t some kind of entry bar to running. Everything else that I do comes with some kind of task that has to be completed for me to become that thing. That task could be as simple as paying dues or as extensive as receiving a college degree.

Recently I was certified as a Red Cross CPR/First Aid/AED Instructor. I took a class, I passed the assessment, and well, here we are. Now I don’t feel weird calling myself a CPR Instructor. It’s just something that I am.

But there isn’t any kind of entry hurdle for running… unless you’re actually doing hurdles, and that just sounds like a terrible idea with me involved. If you remember how that worked out for Goofy, you know how that’s going to go for me…

Anyway, if you want to run, you just put on your shoes and Boom! You’re running. Anyone can do a 5K. You don’t even have to run the whole thing! (Trust me! I’ve checked!)

Virtual races are even easier! You don’t even have to leave your neighborhood or your treadmill for those! (Watch for a post soon about this summer’s Disney Virtual Series!)

So why don’t we accept we’re runners?!

I blame the high school running kids. My little brother was one, and he’s fun to blame. He’s also my favorite (and only) significantly younger brother, so there’s that. (Sorry Jim.)

At my high school, the cross country and track kids had their own little “cool kids” clique. It was a large high school, so there were plenty of groups of “cool kids,” and they were one of many. They weren’t all that special, but they very definitely had their own thing going on.

Even once I went off to college, the elite runners had their own thing going on that was very different from the casual runners who occasionally took over a treadmill at the gym on campus or braved Cardiac Hill. (Fun factoid–one of the elite runners at my university ran on the Canadian Olympic team a few years ago! Super nice person too!)

Maybe that’s the root of it.

Maybe we, the casual running crowd, are scared to call ourselves runners, lest someone mistake us for the elite running crowd. We recognize that we aren’t Eliud Kipchoge or Usain Bolt, and we are sheepish about even using the same word to describe ourselves, even slightly. Would we be more comfortable if we clarified by saying “I’m an amateur runner” or should we just leave it at “I like to run”?

I know I am perfectly happy saying that I like running, but I balk at saying I’m a runner. It means the same thing, and yet, when I say it, it freaks me out.

And this is why I am not an English major.