You know you're a runner when...

MANILA, Philippines - A couple of years ago, my running group was bouncing emails back and forth about running injuries, races and strategies. Pat Concepcion (a.k.a. The Running Shield) of Condura, which holds the annual Skyway race, posted something about knowing when you have transitioned into a “runner.”

It has nothing to do with speed, but with your attitude and love for the sport, and how you have let it enter your everyday life.

Some of his realizations went something like this: “You know you’re a runner when you refuse to wash your running shoes because you like to wear the dirt as a badge of honor….When your socks come in two categories: running socks and others…When you forget birthdays and anniversaries, even major holidays, but never the date of your next race...”

That started the group members to put in their two-cents’ worth, and while most of the reasons were universally shared by all runners (such as Renz’s “Your cats are named Tergut and Haile instead of Muning or Kuting”), a lot of it was from the male point of view.

So I e-mailed them my reasons — from a girl’s point of view. Here I have expanded my original reasons to 21 (the distance of a half-marathon in kilometers — 42 is a lot to come up with!):

You know you’re a runner — a woman runner especially — when:

1 You start wearing dresses with running shoes. It started out for me as a practical reason. A friend was going to tour me around Central Park and she told me to wear my most comfortable shoes. Naturally, they were my running shoes. But I also wanted to wear a dress, so I wore both. I’ve done this even when the dress isn’t too casual — and I don’t really care what people say. 

2 You have a love-hate relationship with running. Like a boyfriend you’ve had a fight with and miss terribly, you welcome it back with open arms even if the running and/or boyfriend has hurt you and injured you in ways only they can.

As light as air: The Nike Lunar Elite+ feel as light as the morning breeze even on the pavement.

3 “21k” to you is a distance, not the carats of a gold ring. And a 3k race is for sprinters, and kids running with puppies, not the carats of a diamond.

4 You would drive home to your grandmother’s house via NLEX and measure 42K as being from her house in Concepcion, Tarlac, to San Fernando, Pampanga, and think, “Would I get arrested if I ran on the highway?” I obsessively measure the distances of places I drive to regularly. I know, for instance, that our old house in QC was approximately 20.4 kms. from the office, that there’s about 4.5 km. between my house and the nearest hypermart, and 65 km. between mine and a friend’s house. You get to be this way because of the race routes — the distances are filed in your head unknowingly and you’re spewing them out as you’re studying the race course. You know that Kalayaan flyover is 2 kilometers long, that 10 kms. on the old Milo route took you to the Buendia flyover and back, that the UP Sunken Garden is 2.3 kms., and BHS’s outer ring is 1.2 kms. You memorize the loops and the turns, the distances and the terrains without your even trying to. 

5 You go to Nike once or twice a week just to ogle the new merchandise — or even if there isn’t any yet because you were there just yesterday. Nine out of 10 times I walk into or out of the Nike flagship store at Bonifacio High Street, I bump into someone I know — and they’re there doing the same thing! I once took my dog Alley and a sales staffer very kindly held her leash for me while I tried on shoes.

6 You have more running shoes than high heels. Even if I prune my closet every so often, they just get the bigger space compared to my heels. My credit card bills have more Nike in them than fashion boutiques.  

7 Your makeup kit consists of a sunblock and a lip balm. The two things I need before a run — one to protect me from the sun, one to keep my lips from drying too much.

8 Your laundry hamper piles up, but your running clothes go to the washing machine and dryer as soon as you get home from a run. Because there’s nothing stinkier than used running clothes and socks. Believe me.

9 You eat carbs without guilt and think you can run the calories off. Sometimes I do; more often I don’t.

10 After a run, you can be all sweaty and look like crap — and you don’t feel ashamed going into Nike BHS. I once did that with a friend after we had just finished running. You know that moment, right? It’s when you stop running that your sweat starts to really pour — or at least for me. And he was like, “Di ba nakakahiya? Pawis na pawis tayo?” I said, “Hell, no, it’s Nike.”

11 Your blush-on is the natural flush you get from running. When I look at post-race pictures, I look like I feel — out of breath. Unlike other runners who are so natural at the sport, the flush I get is so deep that a doctor friend once shrieked in alarm after a run in 2008: “Seeeester, ang pula-pula mo!”

12 You would rather buy a kick-ass running watch than a dress watch. Next to shoes, the most argued-about running accessory is the watch. Does it have GPS? Does it measure the distance accurately? Should you get one with an HRM or not? I remember testing the first Nike + back in 2007 with the late Francis Magalona — he had the Air Max 180, I had the Triax from the Bowerman series. We did a two-km. race in the gym with our iPod Nanos strapped to our arms. Since then I have been hooked on the Bowermans for their cushioning ability and use them for any distance above 10k.

13 Your favorite pastime is daydreaming about running with the people you love and in the places you love. It’s the best movie in my mind — I’m running well with my loved ones in a place like, say, London’s Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens; or Baguio’s Camp John Hay and owning those terrains like nobody.

14 You let your friends talk you into volunteering to help organize a race. Two friends came up with the Corregidor International Half-Marathon on Dec. 19 and have asked their friends to either run the race or volunteer to help it succeed. The half-marathon, which traverses all terrains and the highest peaks of the island, is exceedingly tough. So I went for the latter role.  

15 You have runnersworld.com bookmarked on your laptop. This website helped me create a program when I was preparing to do the San Diego Marathon years ago. Back when I didn’t know any coaches or had very few friends in the running community — this was my friend and coach.   

16 You pack two pairs of running shoes when going on a trip. One goes into the checked-in luggage and another goes into the hand-carry in case the airline loses your suitcase. And this doesn’t necessarily have to be a trip to run a race.

17 You have little debates in your head every time your alarm goes off at 4 in the morning. I envy people who automatically get up at the crack of dawn, they never seem to have that sleep-or-run argument or at least when they do, the run always wins. I envy their discipline and their clockwork schedule — they’re in bed by 10 and on the road by 4. I’m still at the office at midnight!

18 You are grateful to the running gods for that little thing called “muscle memory.” Someone told me years ago to run every new city I find myself in. I was recently abroad and I hadn’t run for several weeks due to an injury called “lazy ass,” but I had vowed to do it and so I did, in the biting cold, and it felt great. Okay, it felt painful — but still good. And you marvel sometimes, after not having run for a while, hey, you can still do it! I mean, your time is shit, but who cares? You ran!

19 You get to know injuries like they were nicknames. Oh and how devastating they can be for the regular podium finishers (what more for the pros!). Plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis, shin splints, stress fractures, patellofemoral syndrome, illiotal band syndrome, pulled hamstrings. In the beginning it all sounded Greek to me. But now, a dinner can sometimes begin and end with, “Where’s So-and-So?” “Oh, I didn’t see her last Sunday because she has plantar fasciitis.” And everybody knows exactly what that’s like. 

20 You get so high with endorphins you are awake for two full days — after a marathon! It’s weird but after a marathon or a really long run, sleep doesn’t come even if your body is dead tired. It happened to me on my last two half-marys — I just wanted to sleep but couldn’t. Then there are people who run a full marathon in the morning and then go to work after breakfast. And on a Sunday, too! 

21 You go out with your running friends and all you will talk about for five hours is shoes. I remember one night that some friends and I went out and all we really did talk about was shoes — what they were currently wearing, what new ones were out, what shoes caused them injury, what colors were nice, what was the best for cushioning, for racing, for their gait. In fact, when we weren’t talking about shoes, we were arguing about socks. Socks! For five hours!