I’ve only recently that I encountered the whole concept of a ‘Life List’. From what I can tell they come in two basic shapes. Some people sit down and, having thought about the matter in great detail, or perhaps not at all, draw up a list of experiences or objectives that they aim to work through before they eventually shuffle off this mortal coil. The other basic variety appears to involve some trendy publication or other drawing up a list of things to which, they want us to believe, we all should aspire. I suppose it’s a bit like the film ‘The Bucket List’ with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson except that with a ‘Life List’ you’re not necessarily required to kick any buckets just yet.

So, given that I’m currently injured and have way, way too much time on my hands, I thought I’d draw up The Life List for Runners. This is obviously a highly scientific exercise where I will bring great insight and wisdom to bear on a topic of global importance to runners everywhere. In other words, I’ve drawn this rubbish up in about twenty minutes and you should forget this stuff as soon as you’ve decided that you have better things to be doing on eBay.

The idea here is to list off the things that you might experience or achieve at various stages in your running career. In a transparently foolish attempt to make it look like I’ve thought this issue through carefully I’ve divided the list into three chunks of ten years of running, but feel free to slot yourself in wherever you feel appropriate. Alternatively you could wash the kitchen floor – you know you want to.

Tortoise

The First Ten Years

If you’ve only just bought your first pair of ASICs you might think that ten years of running seems like a life-sentence. You might reason that you could kill the person who sold you the ASICs with a big gun and that you’d be out of prison in less than ten years and you’d probably be right. However, this running lark has a tendency to take over your whole friggin’ life and before you know where you are ten years can flash by in a blur of purple and lime green polyester.

By the time you’ve been running for ten years you can expect to have had all, some or none of the following happen to you…

• You decide you’ll buy a running magazine and pick up a copy of Runners World. You wonder why most women wear makeup while running.

• You realise quickly that there are no decent running shops near where you live and that stuff bought on the internet costs a lot to post.

• Although you failed maths in the Leaving Cert but you become suddenly and inexplicably obsessed with numbers and statistics. You start to keep a running log. All this numbers stuff starts to make sense.

• For no obvious reason, you want a Garmin. You don’t need a Garmin - you can’t really afford a Garmin and you don’t know how to use a Garmin. You buy a Garmin.

• You know what a Garmin is.

• You begin to think of anyone who runs 20% less than you as being a lightweight and anyone who runs 20% more than you as a lunatic.

• You find that you can’t fit all your really, really nice running t-shirts into one drawer but that you only have a single outfit suitable for weddings, interviews and funerals.

• You run a race. You feel awkward, intimidated, euphoric, depressed, self-conscious, fat, skinny and superhuman all on the same afternoon.

• You tell a lie to another runner about how far you run each week. Obviously you overestimate.

• Someone asks you how long that marathon you ran was and you want to make them die in great pain. You believe this is entirely reasonable. You are correct.

• You look at an Olympic track race on TV and fantasise about being amongst the field. You go out for a run shortly afterwards in the rain.

• You intend going for a seven mile run, but you tell you wife/husband/whatever you’re having yourself, that you’re only going for a five mile run. As the Americans say – your mileage might vary.

• You loose a toenail, poop outdoors, get chaffed in a funny place and taste energy gel for the first time on the same day.

Runners World

The Next Ten Years

By this stage you’ve settled into your stride. You realise that you’re probably stuck with this running lark in some shape or other for the foreseeable future and you’re quite happy with that. You’ve survived plantar fasciitis, iliotibial band syndrome and runner’s knee and you’re still ready to rock and roll, but if you do, it definitely goes into the training log.

• You find that Garmin in a drawer somewhere and can’t remember when you used it last or even how to use it. You try to pawn it off on someone else but get laughed at because it’s an antique.

• You have a box of finisher’s medals that you don’t ever look at but won’t throw out. Nobody’s allowed to mess with the medals.

• You can divide your friends in ‘runners’ and ‘the rest’. You see less and less of ‘the rest’.

• You tell a lie to another runner about how far you run each week. Obviously you underestimate.

• There’s a sizable population in your locality that reference you only as ‘that crazy runner dude/lady’.

• You occasionally wear running gear as bed clothes and at least once you’ve showered in your running gear to save washing it.

• You’d swap a good ten-miler for an ‘early night’ any day of the week. Early nights are also completely out of the question before a big race.

• You spend more on running clothes than on clothes-clothes. This feels completely normal.

• You decide you’ll buy a running magazine and pick up a copy of Athletics Weekly. You wonder why there are no good-looking runners anymore.

• You get angry because your local road race had 3,000 people in it and it didn’t get mentioned in the paper. You notice however that a minor league local soccer match was covered over three pages and a souvenir supplement.

Still Going...

Infinity and Beyond

Well, I could hardly call this ‘the final ten years’ could I? By this stage of your athletic career you’ve seen it all, have done most of it and don’t give a damn about any stuff that’s left over. You’re an old hand and the rest of you isn’t getting any younger either. You’re still running strong but your intervals are a little shorter, your tempo runs are a little less up-beat and your fartlek runs are just plain embarrassing. At this stage you’re just happy to get out the door and back home again without using wheels.

• You don’t ever buy running magazines. What’s the point? They just recycle the same muck over and over again. You’re embarrassed to realise that it’s taken you over twenty years to work this out.

• Occasionally, you run in the same socks as you wear to work. If you thought you could get away with it you’d run in the same shoes as you wear to work.

• You look around yourself at the start of a race and try to work out who’s in your age group. There’s a kitchen clock at stake after all.

• You have race shirts that are older than some of the people that you run with.

• You have an opinion on whether ‘veteran’ or ‘master’ is the appropriate term. Anyone who disagrees with you is a fool, a whippersnapper or both (this is a bad combination).

• Someone asks you how many miles a week you run and you have to stop and work it out. By the time you remember they’ve lost interest, but you tell them anyway.

• PB stands for peanut butter.

• You run when you want, where you want, as fast as you want. You no longer keep a training log.

• Nobody’s ever heard of your running heroes.

• You run towards a group of people by the side of the road when you’re out training and you don’t bother to speed up so that you look good.

• You realize how much you really enjoy running.