The Ultimate Guide to Running Lingo

Want to walk the walk—or, in this case, run the run? Then it’s time to learn how to talk the talk!

Everyone knows runners are all a liiittle bit crazy, so it’s no surprise they have a language all their own.

🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃 🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃

RUNFIE

(NOUN)

A photograph that you take of yourself before, during and after a run, proving to the world just how bad-ass you are.

Easily identified via the sentences:

“I’m going to slay this marathon, but first, let me take a runfie.” 

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RUN-NY

(ADJECTIVE)

A runner or running event evoking a ton of laughter or amusement; humorous.

Easily identified via the sentences:

“Oh, she is so funny! The last time we ran together, she made me laugh so hard GU came out of my nose!”

🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃 🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃

RUNVIOUS

(ADJECTIVE)

Feeling or showing envy of another runner.

Easily identified via the sentences:

“No, I’m not jealous that I didn’t get into the Cross Country SA Team! I’m fine!”

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RUNGER

(ADJECTIVE)

An overwhelming feeling of weakness and/or rage caused by the hunger a runner experiences every 1-2 hours when training for an endurance race.

Easily identified via the sentences:

"I ran a half marathon yesterday, and right now, I need a pizza. NO, I’M NOT GOING TO SHARE. GET YOUR OWN PIZZA!”

🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃 🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃🏃

RUNCH

(NOUN)

A meal eaten in the middle of the day before and/or after lunch but because you’re a runner and runger is real.

Easily identified via the sentences:

“What do you want to eat for runch? I had a salad for lunch, and I’m starving! Let’s get burgers and chips!”

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RUNHOLE

(NOUN)

An irritating or contemptible runner who neglects their friends, family and significant others when they train for an endurance race.

Easily identified via the sentences:

“I can’t; I have a long run in the morning”

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RUNKLES

(NOUN)

When your calves and feet become one due to excessive amounts of running.

Easily identified via the sentences:

“Will you rub my runkles?”

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The distance runner

The distance runner is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious. He is repairing the rent and healing the wound in his divided self. He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary, the commonplace unique, the everyday eternal.

Why do we plank?

Vitamins & Minerals

To be married to a runner.

Maybe at first, dating or marrying a runner might not seem like a bright idea. Really, who wants to spend most of their time with a fitness-obsessed freak who usually wakes up before the sun is out, hands over their hard-earned cash for race entry fees and is probably missing a few toenails?

My husband Abrie is NOT a runner. Nope. No way. But he is a great husband who quietly listens to his wife yammer about her sport. One might say he has successfully mastered the art of the “passive listener of running talk”.

To top it off, I decided to train for my first marathon, and I’m beginning to experience a nagging feeling that has started to intensify.

For once, I’m not referring to nagging feelings of injury; all is smooth sailing on the injury front. [*knocks vigorously on wood*] What’s really starting to eat at me right now is Guilt, yes, with a capital G. Early in the training cycle, it was a faint whisper, but with each passing week, the nagging internal monologue grows louder:

Your running is selfish!

Your running is annoying to everyone, especially your family!

You’d be a better mom/wife/friend if you weren’t taking so much time to RUN.

As runners, we are faced with scheduling conflicts and compromise. Sometimes running is inconvenient, and it doesn’t always just inconvenience us. Running can be a massive pain in the butt for everyone who relies on us too.

For me, the guilt is sometimes overwhelming. While my other runs were shorter and less frequent, and therefore more easily re-scheduled, marathon training runs require focus and dedication to squeezing them all in. This means I have less wiggle room in my schedule to work around a kid’s temper tantrum, my husband’s desire to sleep in on a Saturday morning, or spontaneity in general.

A typical conversation with my husband sounds a little bit like this:

Abrie: Do we have anything going on this weekend? I’d like to do A, B, and C.

Me: Oh, sure, that would be fine. We don’t have much going on. I just have to run 20km on Saturday morning, Oh, and I have 10km to run on Sunday. Can you fit A, B, and C into Sunday evening sometime?

Abrie: Sigh…

And cue Guilt.

In all fairness to my dear husband, he is actually incredibly accommodating. He supports my running and almost always has a delicious meal ready for me when I return home from a long run.

Despite that, I start to even annoy myself with the broken record statement, “But first … my run.” I think my husband’s accommodating nature actually makes me feel MORE guilty sometimes. I feel he needs to punish me by acting more annoyed. Then again, I don’t think I’d like that much either.

I suppose when you’re a wife/mom/friend/runner, you’re used to balancing multiple roles in life, and guilt is inevitable whenever the delicate balance of all things is disrupted. 

Marathon training stops for no one, which means it’s not conducive to pleasing everyone who matters to you. There is something to be said for being dedicated enough to attempt to make it all work, but I also have to have some self-compassion that there will be times when I drop a ball (or four), and that’s just a function of being human. I’d likely drop balls even if I wasn’t training for a marathon because, well, I’m a human!

So how do I manage all of this internal discord? On my pessimistic days, I begin to resent my training. I don’t let myself stay in that mental place very long, though. These feelings are my cues that I’m probably tired, and it’s expected to get down on myself when I look at my calendar, and fitting it all in seems impossible. I have to remind myself that I chose this. I choose to run amongst the chaos of the rest of my life. I must remind myself that this is temporary and that this training cycle has an end date.

I know that this is a wonderful problem to have; I have a lot of people who want my time, and I’m healthy and strong enough to train for a marathon. Sometimes it feels like a tough decision to compromise and make sacrifices when it ALL feels essential. But, just like we do when we run a race, we have to take the attitude in life that we just need to show up and do our best.

Oh, yeah, and when that training plan IS finally done: I am making my husband and children some damn pancakes!!

I am a runner, trying to cycle 🚴

If Runners are Weird, Cyclists are Crazy!

Cyclists are all deluded.

All of them.

I’m being darned serious here. One thing I find most entertaining about this is that they’re the first to tell you:

“Runners are weird”.

They start at o'dark thirty. They are constantly talking about driving to the mountains to climb XYZ mountain on their bikes. They insist that there is a fierce camaraderie found in “suffering” together on hills.

A runner would never say that sort of thing...

The gear is weird, too. Tough to argue with me on that point. After all, it takes a confident man to shimmy into a Lycra and spandex blend and walk around in shiny white shoes that tap on the blacktop. Clickity, clickity clip. Also, there are very few folks who look good in spandex. Even professional athletes aren’t all that sexy when squeezed into bike shorts.

There are exceptions to that rule. There are always exceptions. 

But I am The Rule, not The Exception.  🚷 ⛔ 🚳

Oh yes, Cyclists are a different breed.

They perch on saddles constructed of a 2-inch plastic triangle covered in a sliver of leather for hours of hot, sweaty fun and think nothing of it. Really, on that note, sane people shouldn’t mess with cyclists. They clearly have a pain tolerance higher than the average bear. Or woman, for that matter.

Many Cyclists I have encountered enjoy dishing advice to people they perceive as “noobs”, even if the noob isn't really a noob... The best advice I ever got was regarding cadence.

“You are pedalling too hard. You need to spin more in a circle pattern and pedal in a lighter gear. But not too light. So basically pedal hard enough, without pedalling too hard.”

What?? Gosh. Thanks.

Also, they are very big into safety. As they should be. This sh*t is scary and dangerous.

So, safety advice like "wear a light" is responsible, and everyone should listen. Safety advice like, “Let’s all be safe out there today” is less brilliant. Or other safety advice that is critically important: “Don’t forget to grease the crease”. No, there will be no further details here.

Frankly, I don’t know why anyone does this sport.

It seems nothing but trouble. "Mechanicals", "Chaffing", and "Cars" are all part of the repertoire.

But let's not dwell too long on Cars. They are a scary business. To me, cars hate cyclists because they believe that roads are for cars and cars only. My inner therapist thinks they hate cyclists because bikes scare cars, or do they scare cars? It could be either one, really.

The roads that have fewer cars and are thus logically more appropriate for cycling have only about 3 inches of “extra” road on the other side of the yellow line, so when one does encounter a car, it’s always a cosy experience. Often, these roads are hemmed by 8-foot ditches on either side, which makes sharing difficult for even the best-intentioned driver or cyclist.

By far, though, the strangest part of this sport is the territorial boundaries between the active people who do it and the active people who do everything else.

From where I'm perched on my 2-inch plastic triangle, Cyclists and Runners don't mix all that well.

Weird, right?

Runners hate cyclists because Cyclists hate runners because Runners hate cyclists because...

Of course, from what I’ve seen of them, Swimmers 🏊 are bright enough to stay out of the mix.

Probably because they think they’re superior to the cyclists and the runners.

Run Grateful ♥

Running seems to be one of those things in life—you either love it or you hate it. 

I’m one of ‘those people’ who happen to love it ♡; and not just for the physical benefits but because it’s such good therapy. 

When I’m worked up or stressed out, it’s a calming dose of fresh air and sunshine🌞 (or rain!☔). 

When I’m weary, it energizes me. 

When I’m focused on my imperfections it reminds me to be grateful for all my body’s 💪capable of. It’s forward motion when I’m stuck in the past. It can even break down things like worry and disappointment into nothing more than sweat.

Of course, sometimes, it’s just plain fun.🎆 Something to look forward to. The excitement of an event.💃 A collection of race bibs and tee shirts. 🎽

A hobby. A habit—one I feel good about and that’s introduced me to some pretty amazing people over the years. It’s a community, and all anyone has to do to become a part of it is participate.🎶

Not that it isn’t challenging… some days more so than others. But the thing is, when you’re out there pushing past ‘easy’ and ‘comfortable’ something happens that makes all the effort worthwhile—thoughts become clearer, emotions surface, doubts are confronted and fears get conquered. It’s a beautiful thing. 

A gift. 🎁 A blessing… one I truly am grateful for… every time I’m out there.

You are a runner

Even if you haven’t actually run,

Even if you're overweight,

Even if you were always the kid picked last in gym class,

Even if you’re clumsy,

Even if you don’t own a single piece of fitness equipment,

You ARE a runner.

You don’t have to run fast to be a runner.

You don’t have to be skinny to be a runner.

You don’t have to run marathons to be a runner.

You ONLY have to want to run.

Take your first step along your path to joyful running right now by writing down all the reasons you can’t run, can’t be fit, and can’t possibly become an athlete.

Then crumple up that list with all the force you can muster and toss it in the trash.

Trash those can'ts. You can run.

You are a runner.

♥These are my running partners♥.

Some friendships have been forged by

💗the dedication and pain,

💙by defeat and by accomplishment,

💚by mud and by sweat,

💛by laughter and by tears.

Friends who have seen each other when we look our worst and when we look our best, when we feel like we could collapse and when we've won our biggest victory.

Friends who encourage us when we want to stop, stick with us when we're about to fall, and run beside us not just in the races but every day.

These are the types of friendships that don't fade with time and don't dwindle with distance.

💝These are running partners💝.

Letter to my son

5:30 am, and your hand can’t make it to the alarm clock before the voices in your head tell you it’s too early, too dark and too cold to get out of bed. 💤

Aching muscles lie still in rebellion, pretending not to hear your brain commanding them to move. A legion of voices is giving you permission to hit the snooze button and go back to dreamland.

But you didn’t ask their opinion.

The voice you chose to listen to is one of defiance. A voice that says there was a reason why you set that alarm in the first place. So sit up, put your feet on the floor and don’t look back because we’ve got work to do.

Welcome to the grind.

For what is each day but a series of conflicts between the right way and the easy way. 

10,000 streams span out like a river delta before you, each one promising the path of least resistance.

The thing is, you’re headed upstream. And when you make that choice and turn your back on what’s comfortable, safe, and what some would call common sense, well, that’s day 1. 

From there, it only gets tougher. So just make sure this is something you want because the easy way out will always be there, ready to wash you away. All you have to do is pick up your feet.

But you aren’t going to, are you? With each step comes the decision to take another. You are on your way now, but this is no time to dwell on how far you have come.

You are in a fight against an opponent you can’t see, but, oh, you can feel them on your heels, can’t you? Feel them breathing down your neck.

Do you know who they are?

That is you!!

Your fears, doubts, and insecurities lined up like a firing squad ready to shoot you out of the sky. But don’t lose heart. 💗 While they aren’t easily defeated, they are far from invincible.

Remember, this is the grind.

There is a battle royal between you and your mind, your body, and the devil on your shoulder who tells you this is just a game, a waste of time, and your opponent is stronger than you.

Drown out the voice of uncertainty with the sound of your own heartbeat. 💓

Burn away your self-doubt with the fire underneath you. 🔥

Remember what you are fighting for, and always remember momentum is a cruel mistress. She can turn on the dime with the smallest mistake. She is always searching for the weak place in your armour, the one little thing you forgot to prepare for.

So, as long as the devil is hiding the details, the question remains: is that all you got? Are you sure?

And when the answer is yes, and you have done all you can to prepare yourself for battle, it’s time to go forth and boldly face your enemy.

The enemy within.

Only now you must take that fight into the open, into hostile territory. You are a lion in a field of lions, hunting the same elusive prey with a desperate starvation that says VICTORY is the only thing that can keep you alive.

So believe that voice that says:

you can run a little faster, 

you can play a little harder, 

and that to you, the laws of physics are merely a suggestion.

Nobody can judge effort. Because effort is between you and you. 

Every day is a new day. And every moment is a new moment. 

So now you have to show them you are a different creature than you were five minutes ago.

So rise and shine!

Chasing dreams

We like chasing dreams.

We are kindred spirits in this regard.

Whether your dream is running across South Africa, tackling a marathon, or completing your first 5km, it really doesn't matter. 

When you distil it all, we don't run for the trophies or the records or the recognition; we run because a rapidly beating heart pumps more life through our veins.

 

Our ultimate calling is not to arrive at the finish line in a composed state but rather to stagger in breathlessly, totally annihilated and on the verge of collapse, proudly knowing in our hearts that we have run our race, which was glorious. 

Whether you end up with a medal being placed around your neck or an IV line being placed into your arm, the inner bliss is the same. You have waged your war, and you have emerged victorious.

You are content. If you are never to take another step, you will forever remain satisfied. The job is done.

That is, until the next one. 

Yeah, every runner knows the feeling.