Professional Runner - Running is Primary source of income.
Hobby Jogger/Runner - Runs with performance goals and regularly enters races, but running is a cash flow negative activity.
Lifestyle Jogger/Runner - Runs strictly for health and exercise. Doesn’t care about times. Might occasionally enter a race for fun.
Does that cover everybody? As said, 99% of Letsrun falls into the second category.
There's basically two groups:
- Elite runners (Kipchoge and Matt Choi)
- Hobby Joggers (Everyone else)
The ultimate answer wrote:
It's quite easy actually: Everybody fast than me is a pro, everybody slower than me is a hobbyjogger.
That works pretty much for everybody.
Actually, on LRC, a hobby jogger is "anyone who is slower than I claim to have run but can't verify, at the peak of my career".
the trial of miles wrote:
Is running your primary source of financial support? If not, HJ. Don't take it personally.
There's a few levels:
Elite
sub-elite
recreational
hobby jogger
I think of hobby jogger as more of an attitude- you buy "expensive running shoes so they MUST be the right shoes", and you wear them for a couple years and wonder why your knees hurt, You don't know that courses have to be certified to be accurate and you think your GPS watch is more accurate than the distance the entry said even though it was certified.
You think you're a hard core runner even though your mileage is very low and you don't run every day, you may actually miss a few weeks, then run that marathon anyway ....