The thoughts of a wannabe runner

Right now it's 60 and sunny out in the middle of October in Kent, Ohio. I have three hours until my next class. The Spirit of Pittsburgh half marathon is a little over a week away.

And I'm sitting in my room.

Sometimes I wonder if I can actually call myself a runner. I run a lot. I've spent hundreds of dollars in the past year on entry fees, shoes and clothes. I've ran races around Ohio and a half marathon in Pittsburgh. I can call myself a runner, but do I really have a runner's mentality?

My sister in high school was on the cross country team. She ran six days a week through the summer and fall. I thought she was crazy.

But maybe you have to be.

Running is more than running. Running is a need, not a want. Running is a lifestyle, not a hobby. Running is a lie, not a request.

I can want to run. The weather could be nice, I could feel gung-ho after watching Prefontaine. That stuff would make me want to run. But it's not just wanting. It's needing. I need to run for my day to seem complete. I need to feel that exertion, that tiredness, that pain.

To call running a hobby is a joke. Who can wake up at 5 a.m. for a race on a weekend and call it a hobby? I know a lot of people who call photography or art a hobby. I don't know anyone who has willingly woken up before the crack of dawn to paint though.

Depending on the day, usually about three miles into a run is when I start lying to myself. I tell myself I don't have much farther to go, my legs don't really hurt that bad or it's really not that bad. Sometimes I have to yell at myself (Seriously, watch me run up Summit St. hill sometime). Never though, do I ask myself to run more.

That just seems stupid. Of course I'm going to say no.

But maybe that's the difference between a wannabe and a runner.

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I'm relaunching this blog on wordpress soon. Nothing against blogger, but it just seems like everyone else is on wordpress.

So be on the lookout for SeeJoshRun.wordpress.com (Like the title? I thought of it while running a few weeks ago. And I don't like attack the hill for two reasons: 1) I honestly hate hills, 2) My brother told me the name sounds like a crazy right-wing political blog. He's probably right)

How about run txt?

"I'll run tomorrow morning."

Those are usually the first words I think on Saturday mornings as I roll over on my futon to reset my alarm.

A couple things to note here:

1) The snooze function on my phone has increased my laziness 10 fold.

2) Yes, I sleep on a futon. I'm hip like that.

3) Tomorrow doesn't come very often.

I'm not what anyone would call a lazy person. I take 18 credit hours a semester, work 30+ hours at the newspaper, sit on Kent State United Way's board, plan stuff with student leadership in the Dive, etc., etc.

Lately though, I've been an unmotivated person. I always tell myself I can do this later. Procrastination is every college student's enemy.

When I tell myself I'll do my long run tomorrow, tomorrow becomes tomorrow, and tomorrow becomes tomorrow. You get the idea. It just never happens.

I think this is why having a running partner is so important. Running partners do more than just chat while jogging; they encourage each other.

This morning if I had gotten a text or anything from someone telling me or asking me to run, I probably would have. I would have jumped out of bed, thrown on my running stuff and headed outside. A simple text message is encouragement. It's knowing you're running for someone else.

It's like a team almost. You don't work for yourself, you work for the guy next to you. When I'm running by myself, the guy next to me is a large, middle-aged man mowing his lawn in cutoffs. He's not exactly someone I want to work for. So I don't run.

I'm one of those people who don't like to disappoint. I also don't say no very often. So if someone tells me to run, I'll do it. Maybe I'm a little weird in that sense. But that's what gets me to run.

So next time you hear me talking about running, send me a text the next day. I'll feel guilty and run. And you'll feel great knowing you've just manipulated me into doing something.