14 Things You Can Tell You're an Enthusiastic Runner By

Think you're an avid runner because you like to jog around the block in running shoes? It's possible that's true. To be on the safe side, take the test: These 14 things - not always meant to be taken seriously - will tell you how much enthusiasm you really have for jogging.

You're a passionate runner if ...

While others are still sleeping, passionate runners slip into their running shoes early on Sunday morning to start their day off with a "sober run". Without breakfast and with a rumbling stomach, they tackle a longer lap to train their fat metabolism.

At the end, a stop at the bakery, then it's the last few meters home with the paper bag in the sweaty hand. The rolls appease the waiting family and replenish the empty carbohydrate stores.

Anyone who turns 30, 45, 60 or 75 slips into the next higher age group in running competitions, where they will then spend the next five years. The "newcomers" are the youngest for the time being - and thus have an advantage over the older ones. After all, the decline is greater at 44 than at 40, isn't it?

Grandmothers who can't pinch their grandson's chubby cheeks to greet him, but instead slide down his cheekbone, sometimes react anxiously, "Child, are you eating enough?" For ambitious runners in the competition season, the best compliment ever!

No, the two blood-red spots on the right and left of the male marathon runners' jerseys don't look like blood. They are blood! If a shirt rubs up and down a man's nipples for 42.195 kilometers, there's not much of it left at the finish line. Once this happens to you, you'll never run without a band-aid again. Don't worry: pulling it off doesn't hurt half as much as a sore nipple.

"Well, what's hurting us today? The knee again? Or the other Achilles tendon this time? Oh, the shin hurts? Well, let's take a look at that." There probably isn't an orthopedist who hasn't treated runners. The first question they usually ask after a diagnosis is: "When can I run again?

Skippings, jump runs, lunges, heels, bounce hops, side jumps - passionate runners not only know what these are, but can perform all the exercises cleanly without getting sore muscles. The running ABC is not an alphabet, but a collection of technique exercises. If you include them regularly in your training, you will run with less effort, more light-footed, faster and guaranteed more beautiful.

The very small pins are best for pinning a race number to your chest. More elegant and more gentle on the shirt is a start number band, which is quickly annoying, however, if the number slips on the back again and again. Passionate runners not only have safety pins or bib tapes, but even know in which drawer both are kept.

The Ethiopian long-distance runner is a legend. He won two gold medals at the Olympic Games and four at world championships. The 47-year-old's best 10-kilometre time is 26:22 minutes, and he ran the marathon in 2:03:59 hours. Fans recognized him from afar by the somewhat strange position of his left arm. He explained this with his ten-kilometre-long way to school - on which he carried the books with his left arm. But what was the name again?

You think a marathon is hell? Well, you're wrong: The two days afterwards are. Even getting up is difficult, getting dressed is done sitting down, and you just drop off the toilet. If you've been smart, you work in your home office after a marathon or - even better - you've taken the day off and can just carefully sneak back and forth between the bed and the fridge. Less experienced - but no less passionate - runners have to get to work and possibly down a flight of stairs the day after the marathon finish. Don't even try - go straight backwards, it helps, I promise!

Passionate runners can convert kilometers into seconds and 400-meter split times into speed - even while running. They know what it means to run "five minutes seven per kilometer" and can calculate their half marathon finish time from that. If they miss their best time by just one second, they are annoyed, whereas "one second per kilometer" can definitely result in a new best time in a marathon.

Passionate runners run in all weathers. They lace up their running shoes when it's raining outside or has been snowing for three days. When it's stormy, they don't stay at home, but put on a windbreaker; when the sun is scorching, they take along a hydration belt and put sunscreen on their arms. And in the dark? You can also walk - preferably with a lamp strapped around your head.

How can you tell that tomorrow is a runner's big day? A huge pot of pasta is bubbling on his stove in the evening, enough to feed a whole family. The runner eats them all by himself - with low-fat sauce and a sprinkling of Parmesan, accompanied by non-alcoholic wheat beer. He eats pasta until he can't see any more, and then one more plate.

His aim is to fill his running muscles to bursting point with carbohydrate. Because the following day is the starting signal for the season's highlight: a ten-kilometre run, a half marathon or even a marathon. The noodles should do the trick and protect you from the man with the hammer (see below).

He stands at every marathon course from about kilometre 30 onwards and strikes there mercilessly. Runners who were just running light-footedly in the runner's high shuffle along with a blank stare after his devastating blow, crave a sip of Coke or stretch their cramping calves while lying down. Dreams of best times that were just realistic burst like soap bubbles on the asphalt when the man with the hammer is around. Whoever gets the hammer has really stepped on the gas beforehand, misjudged his euphoria and hopefully doesn't have too far to go.

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