If You Loved Me You’d Make Me Run Faster

True love waits…for you to finish your run.

Well, being the forever pathetic runnerchick in the whole love department (can I at least say I try to make up for that last tag-line with doubling up on the running portion?? Hehe.) I can’t exactly off up all too much insight into the topic of whether it’s easier to have both people as runners in a relationship or not. Though I still tend to be able to yammer on about anything regardless, so I’ll offer up some keen words of wisdom.

I’ll say that runners are quirky. In some cases that’s an understatement; now I know everyone, runner and non-runners alike, have their own quirks, but the thing is many runners share the same quirks. If not the exact same quirk, something similar and they can at least see where the other person’s insaneness is stemming from. They may know it’s totally illogical but they can at least SEE the other person’s line of reasoning. (Umm, even the person with the quirk usually knows that just because something isn’t rational doesn’t mean they don’t have to still harbor the desire to do it…mmmmk.)

That said, I’ve heard from couples of the mix-matched running pursution that having a non-runner helps balance out the insanity…so who really knows. I guess in the end “all you need is love, love. Love is all you need.” Before I start tasting that yummy chocolate chip muffin for the second time, I’ll cut to some things that, love aside, I think any kind of partner for a runner addict enthusiast should be able to understand…or at least see the line of reasoning of it.

* I love you but the watch comes first. Now this may sound horrible, but let me explain myself fully before you judge. When you’re on a run, with anyone for that matter, there is an agreement that barring some insane, brutal attack (bear mauling) if one person has to stop or slow down the other person doesn’t necessarily have to do the same. If a person has to make a pit-stop, their running buddy doesn’t need to stop running, they may circle around but it’s not like we are to share a bush! Sometimes on easy days one person’s pace may not be exactly the same as the others and if there comes a point in the run where a person wants to slow down, their partner can of course choose to do so as well, but they can also choose to do their own thing. It’s then understood it’s nothing person.

* You trip the switch I’ll kill you. I harbor this insane amount of fear that for some reason there may be a power surge while I’m in the middle of my run on a treadmill and the machine will stop. I try to zone out if I can and not stare at the screen so I’m afraid that I’ll then not know how far I went and…gasp…will have to guess. I’m also afraid that if anyone is around the area of the cord they will somehow trip on it and it will be unplugged. (This happened once to me, and is my explanation for this ridiculous phobia of mine.) Even worse, if I were in the middle of a hard workout and the cord came unplugged, I’d probably kill the person who did it.

* Understand the fartlek. The whole fast slow thing really gets annoying if you’re on a bike path and there are other people, strangers, around you running at a pace that causes you to keep passing them on your fast part and then having them pass you on the easy part. You of course try to get faster on the fast part, and bump up the recovery pace, but through the course of the workout that gets tougher and sometimes the other person is thinking, “wtf” and tries to amp up their pace. I guess I bring this up because if the ‘stranger’ is the kind of person who would do that and not understand what the fartleking running was doing, then said person is stamped un-date-able (maybe un-friendable…jk.) off the bat.

* What’s said/done mid-hard workout can later be ‘taken back’ without explanation. Sometimes that little inner beast of a person can rise up out of nowhere in the middle of a bad run, a really tough workout, heck, just because. I’ve seen athletes actually flip their coaches the bird and scream upon being told they were running another ‘surprise’ interval…they of course ran the interval and five minutes later chumming it up with dear coachie. The episode never needed to be talked out, it wasn’t anything person just one of those things that you run the risk of encountering when there’s suffering (the good kind) involved. The bottom line is the workout got done; if there had been a refusal that’s a totally different story…complain if you want but you know you’re going to do it.

* No pity clap. The only thing that makes a bad workout or race WORSE is the pity clap or ridiculously over-board encouragements. Such as, I was once running a tempo, it was crash and burn stlye and by the end there, running so far off pace the only reasonable explanation would have been that I was running backwards…sadly I wasn’t. My coach offered up the logical form tips and such but another coach standing track-side started pulling the way, over the top cheerleader, “Looking AWESME!!! Great job!! Keep it up!!” He was actually smiling and clapping like a little kid looking forward to birthday cake. The thing is, we all knew the truth and that wasn’t it. In cases like this, please don’t pretend we don’t all know that what is going on is ugly…doing so only makes the workout/race worse.

* If you love me you’ll kick my @$$. There are many runnerchicks blessed with some faster hubbys and can rope them in enlist them for pacing duties. Here is where you couldn’t ask for a better situation, at least from the girl’s perspective. Or if the runnerchick was able to chick her hubs it would be working to his favor there…rock on. Having a pacer right there would be awesome so long as they understood that when the going gets tough they better keep on pushing…true love knows in the quest for our best we gotta get our @$$’s kicked in the best, most painful way. 🙂
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If you like that first picture up there, I just added it to my Etsy store so you can snag a copy there if you like! Feel free to check out the others up too, and let me know if you have any requests for images not already posted!
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1) Got any insights into the running couples situation…where do you stand, better to be both runners or not?

2) What’s one thing, a quirk or line of reasoning, you’d like to add here to the list?

3) Do you have a story to share about an infuriating fartlek experience?

4) Trials talk…we’re all open for that here too!