Other runners

I admit it. I am a running snob. My own running schedule has been light and irregular for near two years now and so I still have the same running shoes I bought after graduating from Gonzaga, but I absolutely judge other runners when I pass them and they pass me. I'm disappointed in runners who wear long-sleeves when the temperature might be in the low 60's. I think less of those who hold their arms stiff and close to their bodies. I have to hold back a laugh when someone wears a belt with two water bottles stuffed in it when it's obvious they aren't running more than three miles.

Beside the runners who clearly know what they're doing, the only runners I really respect are the ones who have no idea what they're doing. There was a man I passed near every day for one summer in Spokane. He looked like a snowman with a ball of a head on top of a bigger ball of a body, his elbows had a wider range of motion than his hands and he wore a sweatshirt that had to have absorbed every drop of sweat he dropped during his run, but I respect him more than most all of the runners I see on the Burke-Gilman Trail. He wasn't waiting to be properly equipped with all of the latest gadgets suggested by Runner's World or with the latest, most high-tech fabrics and shoes from REI and The North Face. He, and the people who run in cargo shorts and their basketball shoes, are getting out there and running and not caring whether they look like runners. They are just doing it. I respect that.