What is the limit?

[beige_alert]

I always say I'm not really a runner. Sure, I do a little jogging now and then, since exercise is good for you and all. But it's not really my sport. I'm a cyclist, after all. So, sure, I'll strap a GPS to my wrist to keep track of distance and speed and heart rate and I'll enter the data into a spreadsheet and maybe I'll dress up like a colorblind superhero and run 10km in the rain on a Saturday morning, but, still, it's not like I'm really into it. I'm not one of those runners.

But then I realized that my last little run was just 6km short of a half marathon, which means I could do a half marathon for sure, no problem. Now, I know for sure that if you run a full marathon, you can't really say that you're not a runner, and you're just not really that into running. But a half marathon? Can you run a half marathon just for the hell of it and still claim to not really be into running?

Comments

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

You're a runner. Deal with it! *g*

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

I think more than the distance the key indicator is the 10km in the rain on a cold Saturday morning. That indicates...something...

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

Like... masochism? ;-)

[otherdeb.livejournal.com]

Why the hell not?

Call yourself whatever you want, identify however you want. Just do what feels good for you, and be happy. And I know at least a couple of ex-coworkers who ran one marathon each, but do not consider themselves serious runners -- they just wanted to prove they could do it.

At any rate, have fun. That's the main thing!

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"Can you run a half marathon just for the hell of it and still claim to not really be into running?"

IMO, yes. If you do it every few months the claim may wear a little thin, but if you are doing it once "because I can" (or possibly "to see if I can") then that doesn't automatically make you "a runner", just "someone who occasionally runs". Just like me singing a song in a filkcon circle once a year doesn't make me "a singer" or "into singing"[1].

Perhaps a more accurate comparison is that I'm not a Perl programmer. Sure, I write Perl scripts, and sometimes actually use that language in preference to others, but it's no how I would introduce myself -- I'm a C++ programmer, and a comms programmer, but Perl Is Just A Goddam Hobby. I'm not an AWK programmer, even though I once wrote a 10k-line script in the language (OK, it ended up that long after a year or so).

[1] OK, I actually do it a lot more often than that, and I do consider myself "a singer" as part of my self-identity. But you get the picture, I hope.

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

You wrote a 10k-line AWK program? That makes you something though I'm not sure what. Though from time to time I end up writing tens of lines in it at work, which I never expected to happen. Here I thought I was a chemist...

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I think the word is 'insane' *g*. It didn't start out that way, it just ... grew. A definite case of feaping creaturitis.

(Messrs. Aho, Weinberger, and Kernighan commented in the AWK book about their puzzlement; they intended the language to be used for small scripts, the 10 lines or so you mention, and found people writing thousands of lines in it...)

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

But it puts you in such distinguished company as Henry Spencer and his "Amazing Workable Formatter," the nroff clone written in AWK.

[aunty_marion]

AWKward. Probably. *g,d&r*

Can you run a half marathon just for the hell of it and still claim to not really be into running?

[happyfunpaul.livejournal.com]

It depends what's chasing you. :-)