The Nod

I went for a run yesterday in the neighborhood next to my apartment complex. I love going over there, especially in the spring, because the houses are all beautiful brick ones with rolling lawns and huge old trees. There are usually a lot of people walking around too, meaning my run is frequently interrupted by friendly waves and smiles. Which I like.

For awhile, I hated running outside. I hated passing other runners who would give you what I like to call the runner's nod, a cursory head jerk acknowledging that you are both fitness machines. More often than not, I felt like the nod was filled to the brim with judgment- What does she think she's doing out here? the nod would say. She's not a runner! Poser!


I blame my dad.

Why? When we were little, we did a lot of driving around town. I'm not really sure why. I remember piling leaves on top of my dad's creepy child-molester looking van (a red and white Dodge caravan with a three-seat bench in the middle and a huge trunk... who buys that for real? Even if you do have to carry hurdles and shotputs around?) and driving down the street, watching them fly off the roof as my sister, brother, and I crouched looking out the back window. Not safe on a NUMBER of levels. We did the same thing with snow.

Anyway, we drove around a lot. And whether we were on road trips or just driving in an unsafe manner around Painted Post, my dad did this thing when he would see people running on the side of the road. He categorized them into one of three categories.

Category 1- runner. These were the people whose calves would ripple with each lightning-quick step, the people running almost as fast as your car. They were always tan. They were always focused.

Category 2- jogger. Less fashionable running clothes, not quite as tan, and not quite as fast, but all of the joggers looked as if they had a pretty high level of general fitness. Nothing too impressive, but then everyone can't be. This brings us to category 3, the reason why I feel self-conscious running on busy roads or outside in general.

Plodder. Picture a multi-colored windsuit stretching and pulling at the hips and buttocks as if something underneath is trying to squeeze its way out. Picture scrunchies. Picture a person who stops excessively, usually falling over when they try to stretch out their quad. Picture a person putzing along so slowly, so pathetically, that it can't even be considered running. They'd be better off walking. Or crawling. At least then they wouldn't be calling it running. That's a plodder.

Obviously I'm not a plodder, especially since I'm in the Sports Hall of Fame (don't know if everyone knew this). I probably used to be though, and the idea of someone driving by and grouping me in with the windsuited, scrunchy type was too much for me to bear. So I avoided it.

Yesterday was probably the first day that I got a nod that did not scream "Plodder!", even if those nods were completely dreamed up in my head. I finally got a nod that hinted I might actually be a runner now, a veteran of the streets.

Or maybe it's just southern manners. I'll never know.