I first started running because I wanted to lose weight, and I started with the couch to 5k program. I told my friends what I was doing, and they would greet me every other day with a "hows your running going?" and I would tell them all about it. They seemed genuinely interested in my exercise because I think they were just happy that I was doing something active. Now that I've since graduated the C25k program, they actually seem a little annoyed when I bring up running. I still get really excited about going a farther distance/getting a better time, but they really don't want to hear it anymore. Also, the fact that I now get up at 7am to go running weirds them out. 7am isn't even that early! But I am a graduate student, most of us don't get up till noon My husband at least says "thats nice honey" when I tell him all about my running. But for the most part, I just keep it to myself.

All I know is that when you're out there in January, battling 20 mph headwinds and sub 40 temps in a blinding rainstorm, feeling miserable and questioning yourself, and then you spot some other miserable person out on a run, that's when you "get it."

I really think there are way more runners out there than people realize. Everyday that I drive around I see some runner out somewhere, and some events here in Seattle draw thousands of people (most of whom are faster than me )

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-Andy
Competing in 5Ks

quote:<HR>Originally posted by bmorerunner:
I used to avoid telling my friends how often I run or how I did in a race because I didn't really think they they could relate to the sport unless they were a runner themselves. It seemed that most of my friends really should no interest to my hobby so I avoided the topic altogether.

I remember when I was into tennis and golf awhile ago and it was so easy to get people to converse with me about those sports, but for some reason, the topic of running seems to have the opposite effect.

<HR>

Some are--- more just think it's boring---

Though I have gotten more than enough to pick up running by my talking/excitement about it to encourage me to keep talking!

Sarah -

Freaky in a respectable sorta way..

I apologize to runners everywhere, but I actually think I have the opposite effect. I'm 5'11" and float between 195-210 depending on how close it is to the winter holidays. When I tell people that I've run a marathon ans/or share my 5k times - current PR is now down to 21 and change (big improvement for me), it seems to blow their image of runners. Like - well ****, if his fat arse can do it, then it must be easy. I think it almost makes them angry - like they want running to be hard and only for certain body-types. I'm definitely mesomorph - build more for sprinting than long distance, but I'm older now, so distance is a better fit. In fact, my one neighber actually looked at me and said, quite dejectedly - "you have just destroyed my conception of what a distance runner is" - and it wasn't a compliment. He seemed truly deflated. He's a thin guy and had just worked up to 2 mi. on the treadmill. So - I am sorry to the ectomorph's and elites who are everything a distance runner should be. I didn't mean to tarnish your image, I just like to run. Maybe from now on, I'll just tell folks I'm doing jazzercise - I don't care what I do to those people's image.

Unprovoked defensiveness...check!

Anyway, I don't find that people are intimidated at all. Actually, it seems to make them feel better when they find out that I run...as though they try to figure out why I'm skinny (and I'm actually not skinny at all, for a competitive distance runner) and then realize it's just because I burn an extra 1400 calories a day or so...

But it seems to me that I'm generally surrounded by healthy, active people.

When I say to my friends that I´ve ran 10 km, they think I´m crazy.

Anyway, I hardly see any runners around, only in some heavily dense neighborhoods. Besides that, mainly joggers who spend their entire run running in circles around a park and who think they are running.