Top 10 Signs You Are a Runner

10. Your closets are full of dead and half-dead running shoes, which you refuse to throw out because of the "memories". Plus, they must be good for something, right?

9. You wear a big-ass running watch on your wrist. Even with formal wear.

8. "Vacations" almost always involve running some marathon or competing in a multi-sport event (tri or a du).

7. You can readily convert miles to kms and vice versa, but cannot add, subtract, multiply, or divide to save your life.

6. You have taken carb loading and peeing in the great outdoors to an art form.

5. You reel in horror at being called "a jogger".

4. You fight the chaf with Body Glide.

3. You dressed up as Paula Radcliffe for Hallowe'en.

2. You know that BQ'ing is good, DQ is not good, DNFs suck, and BMs while on the road really, really suck.

1.You know that the mantra, "pain is weakness leaving the body" only works for the first ten miles or so. After the first ten miles, you remember that the pain only gets so bad and then it doesn't get worse. Just longer. After twenty miles, you wonder when you will hit that point when the pain doesn't get any worse.

After twenty two miles, you begin to pray, "Now, Lord, please take me now." After twenty three miles, you are prepared to mug other runners for their Tylenol. At twenty-four miles, you begin to fantasize about ice baths. At twenty-five miles, you know the end is nigh. At twenty six miles, you reach that point where the pain does not get any worse.

And at 26.2 miles? Well, at 26.2 miles, you would do it all over again...