Runner vocabulary/slang

WHAT THE HECK IS THIS ABOUT?

Slang wrote:

crowds chanting: "woooooooooooot" as someone is getting "walked"(also slang) at the end of a race

Crapper John, MD wrote:

taper

Used in many other sports.

Outkick

(I've never met a non-runner who knew what this meant)

To "dog" someone, meaning to sit on them.

Um, no, I'm Canadian.

But I've never met anyone here who converts miles to km if it's not a set distance like 10k, 5k, etc. People will call a marathon 26.2 miles or a 10 miles road race 10 miles, and not convert it into km. THe point I was making is that as a sport we use both - we can compete in a 1500m race AND a mile race so we get situations where we use both systems in one sentence - 2 miles at 5k pace, or whatever.

P.S. And if you got over yourself, you'd realize that in non-US countries we often mix the two systems. People will drive at 60km/hr but say they're 5'6". Very few people give weight and height in metric, but people use Celcius instead of farenheit, and litres, and so on.

metric/imperial wrote:

P.S. And if you got over yourself, you'd realize that in non-US countries we often mix the two systems. People will drive at 60km/hr but say they're 5'6". Very few people give weight and height in metric, but people use Celcius instead of farenheit, and litres, and so on.

"Non-US countries"?

You are speaking of Canada and Canada only, pal. I live there. Thanks for the useful information.

"Bob Jones, a steepler in college, now enjoyed his masters running competitions, training by doing quarters on the cinders and galloping about in flats as he threw in the occasional fartlek or ins-and-outs workout."

What I've learned from this thread:

1. Running has very few terms that are original to it. Most are borrowed from other sports.

2. (not really new) Runners, or more specifically the posters here, are very UN-cultured outside of running. I judge this from the fact that so many of the terms that people listed are borrowed from other sports yet are still posted as "runner vocabulary/slang" that is original to the sport.

Thanks everyone for your contributions.

For now the list I see as:

-Deuce

-Fartlek

-Turnover

-Striders

-Ladder (as in a ladder workout)

-Tempo

-Taper (is this included in other sports?)

-Kick/Outkick

Most of the terms I left out are used in cycling or swimming. Good ones include:

-DNF

-PR

-Rabbit (are there rabbits in cycling?)

-Hammer

-Negative Split

-Doubling (I think swimmers often double, I don't know if they call it doubling, though)

And there were also good idioms:

-to "sit on" someone

-to "drop" someone

-to "die"

-to "hit a/the wall"

I am asking this because I have a term paper for linguistics where I decided to analyze the vocabulary of a certain sport (track). Kids in my class actually told me I couldn't do it because track isn't a sport. But that's a whole 'nother issue. So thank you for the help, and I don't mean this to end the thread....keep posting if you've got good stuff.

Thanks a lot.

And obviously, you assume that I've never travelled, lived, or been born in any other country except Canada.

So no, I'm not only speaking of Canada, but "non-US" countries, pal.

This is a stupid argument. My original point was that in the same sentence runners can switch between miles and km in a way that swimmers or cyclists really won't. I don't see how anything you have to say disproves this.

Answer this question wrote:

Thanks a lot.

No, thank you for knowing that "a lot" is two words.

BAFFLED IN BALTIMORE wrote:

WHAT THE HECK IS THIS ABOUT?

Slang wrote:

crowds chanting: "woooooooooooot" as someone is getting "walked"(also slang) at the end of a race

come to Penn Relays. it's not that far from Baltimore. you'll find out exactly what 'slang' is talking about. it's one of the most electrifying moments in track - when someone is getting passed in the stretch and 47,000 people are on their feet chanting 'wooooooooooooooooooot' (like a siren, basically).

haha..."spanked" as in "those guys got spanked"

mileage

it's probably used in other sports but non-runners are always amused when I use the word since most people associate it with cars.

Boston

"going to Boston" means something specific to runners.

"Trips on the duelies"

"Like slapping a baby"

"Ner"

"Flussen"

Answer this question wrote:

Thanks everyone for your contributions.

For now the list I see as:

-Deuce

-Fartlek

-Turnover

-Striders

-Ladder (as in a ladder workout)

-Tempo

-Taper (is this included in other sports?)

-Kick/Outkick

Most of the terms I left out are used in cycling or swimming.

Turnover is definitely used in swimming, and taper is used in many sports. Looks like you're getting a good collection, though.

nh native wrote:

come to Penn Relays. it's not that far from Baltimore. you'll find out exactly what 'slang' is talking about. it's one of the most electrifying moments in track - when someone is getting passed in the stretch and 47,000 people are on their feet chanting 'wooooooooooooooooooot' (like a siren, basically).

Nice. I also like "getting walked."

metric/imperial wrote:

I'm not only speaking of Canada, but "non-US" countries, pal.

This is a stupid argument. My original point was that in the same sentence runners can switch between miles and km

Yes, it is a stupid argument for you to be making. Yes, runners do switch between miles and kilometers, but as I said, "only in the US" and in a neighbouring that is so heavily influenced by the US that its efforts to go metric only half-succeeded.

I don't doubt that you've left Canada, espcially given your knee-jerk ultra-defensive reponse. What I doubt is that people in other countries mix miles and km as interchangeably as you suggest. My experience offers only a small sample, but I've trained and/or competed in Brazil, the UK, Australia, South Africa, France, Kenya and Ethiopia. No one I trained with or spoke to in these places mixed km and miles, unless they travelled to the US for a marathon and were forced to convert for that one day.

So, what were these other countries? I assume that you can easily provide links to examples of your "argument"...