Look, a Crazy Runner Person!

When I was in high school I was a crazy runner person. You know the type, they dress for the weather with their headbands, gloves, and under-armor leggings, and they hit the pavement in the wee hours of the morning, afternoon, and sometimes late at night. You see them everywhere, running along step after step, and while you make fun of them you secretly wish that you could be them. My brother and I coined this term after watching a runner struggle through a snowstorm on one particularly forbidding day.

“Look, it’s a runner.”

“Yeah, a crazy runner.

 “Do you think they need a ride?”

“No, they’re probably like Calvin’s dad (from Calvin and Hobbes) they would say no and keep going even if their face froze off.”

 “Yep, that’s probably right... crazy runner person.”

And thus, ‘crazy runner person’ was born. Every time we saw someone running, it was “Look! A crazy runner person!” Both my brother and I did cross-country in high school, so we felt justified in calling them crazy runner persons, after all, weren’t we crazy runner persons ourselves?

But lately I’ve slacked off, and by lately I mean all throughout college. Sure, there’d be two or three weeks once or twice during the semesters that the urge to run would become strong enough that I’d lace up my shoes, pull out my headband, and take off. This would continue until my schedule would put a kink in the running plans, and somehow I’d just never get back around to it.

Today however, I decided to become a crazy runner person once more, and I took off on a 3 mile run. I’m not that out of shape and I only stopped to walk twice so I am quite proud of myself. But there’s something running does to me. For one, my body responds quite well to it and I get random bursts of energy throughout the day. Another effect I have discovered is that now I am unable to sleep, even though it is 1:33 in the morning. I tried for an hour, then got up and wrote a chapter of the book I’m working on, and decided to transform my experience into a blog. Danger, becoming a crazy runner person gives you insane amounts of energy and may make your day super productive. At 1:34 in the morning, I don’t think that’s a good thing.

Still, I think I’ll continue being a crazy runner person; I kind of enjoy the endorphin high it gives me, as well as being part of an elite group that we all stare out the window at and secretly wish to join. So next time you see a crazy runner person, nod and wave, they’ll be glad to wave back at the crazy driver person who decided to notice them after all. (Or you could try and run them down, giving them an extra boost to their workout! I don't believe that's sanctioned by the police though...)