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Family life

Does your partner “get” running?

While Run-at-home mom blogger Jennifer is happy that her husband has different interests than her, sometimes she wished that he “got” running

By Jennifer Pinarski
Does your partner “get” running?

Texting my husband during my 20K run to ask him to leave me food on the driveway confirms that I am bananas

My husband is not a runner, in fact, he dislikes any sport that makes him sweat. To his credit, he has given running a try, including running the Manitoba Half Marathon. He completed it on just 10K of training, lost a toenail during the race and hasn’t run a step since. He’s proud of his achievement, even if it left his shins a little traumatized. 

I am jealous of running couples because they are the cutest, healthiest couples I know, but being married to a non-runner works for me. There are no arguments over who goes running when, I don’t have the stress of finding childcare on race day and most importantly, it means that I have my family waiting for me at the finish line. It means that I don’t feel guilty when I head out the door for a few hours of running because Mr. P gets his few hours of peace and quiet while fishing and golfing. 

But you know what, I wished he got running.

A cheeky blog post by Adam Goucher (Adam himself is an elite Olympic runner and married to Olympian running mama Kara Goucher) called Seven Signs of Running Addiction made me realize that as much as Mr. P is supportive of my running, he really doesn’t get it. In addition to the signs Adam mentions — planning races around vacations, having unusual friends, wanting to sleep after completing a long run — Saturday’s 20K added more weird signs to the list:

  • I told him I was going for a short run. When he asked me how far, I told him only 20K or so.
  • Only 20 minutes into my run, I sent my husband a text asking him to leave me a banana at the end of the driveway because I was hungry. He actually called me thinking I texted him by accident. I ate the banana heading out onto the second lap of my run.
  • The first thing I did when I got home was drain my blood blisters. Yes, it’s gross and general thinking is that you are to leave blisters alone, but I’m a believer in draining them ASAP.

As I head into the final weeks of training for the Cayman Islands Half Marathon, the signs of my running addition are only going to get worse. For example, I’ve taken to wearing all of my winter gear indoors while running on the treadmill at the gym to hopefully cope with the heat on race day. Maybe it is just as well that Mr. P is travelling this week.

If you’re a runner, how does your spouse cope with your quirky habits? And on the flip side, if your spouse is the runner, what do they do that drives you bananas?  

Photo by Svadilfari via Flickr

This article was originally published on Nov 15, 2011

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