A Runners’ Guide to Ruining Your Family’s Holiday

Burn the Gravy Boats

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post was published six years ago. It’s been updated to include the Alphafly 3.

Ah, the holidays. A time for love, a time for hate. If you’re a new runner, this is a great time to let everyone know about your most recent running accomplishments (sub-30 5k!), how good you feel (endorphins > tryptophan), and the crazy fun new friends you’ve met through running. For seasoned runners, enjoy the tradition of being the celebrated weirdo in the family. Your shorts have only gotten shorter over the years, so it’s time to show up in a Speedo. Embrace it. Go all out.

If you’re new and need a how-to, or if you’re old and need a refresher—here’s our guide on how to make sure you make the most of ruining your family’s time together.

15 Things They Hate About You

1) As most runners know, to really kick off the tradition of familial animosity during the holiday season, be sure to sign up as many non-willing family members for a Thanksgiving morning Turkey Trot. Ideally, this will be incredibly early in the morning, after a night of heavy drinking, and the temperature will be somewhere around freezing with a chance of rain. You, being a runner fresh off marathon season, will act like this is the pecan pie before the dinner. Everyone else will count this “marathon” as their charity time for the entire holiday season/year. Bonus points if you complain that the distance was 1/10^th of a mile off.

2) If your family doesn’t go the Turkey Trot route, go for a long run before everyone gets out of bed. Also be sure to take a long, hot shower after your run, long enough to use all the hot water in the house. Take a nap after that too, just as everyone is getting ready to help out with Thanksgiving dinner. You just ran 10 miles (maybe more!)— you deserve it.

3) Tell everyone that more than anything in your life, you’re thankful for running. Repeat it several times throughout the day.

4) As much as possible, bring up your marathon training cycle over Thanksgiving Dinner. Everyone definitely wants to know that you nailed your Yasso 800s at the right times, and the in-depth details of how many toenails you lost during the racing season. Casually drop how carbs are actually good again as you’re passing the mashed potatoes. Be sure to disown anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the impressiveness of running a 7-minute PR on a hilly course with 80% humidity. Continue to explain the math and minute per mile pace until every last person has left the dining room.

5) Foam roll in front of the TV while your family watches football and has to pretend their relative isn’t some guy with a ghost fetish, dry-humping the air for no good reason. Apply this to doing literally any warm-up in a room with other people present. Silver lining: maybe your niece will record you and you’ll become TikTok famous, because everyone knows your side hustle as an influencer isn’t taking off. Trust me, everyone knows. And yes, it’s not because you don’t make enough posts about being a Rad Rabbit Elite and/or Honey Stinger ambassador. It’s you. It’s just you.

6) Ask Santa for the Nike Alphafly 3. Even though you just bought a pair last month. And the month before that.

7) Ask Santa for Satisfy. Your kids don’t need to go to college and your pets don’t need to eat.

8) While your spouse puts the star on the tree, remind him how you too only need one more Abbott Marathon Major star on your tree. Tell them it’s a great way for the family to see the world from the perspective of a metal race barrier. Make sure you include a fundraising ask on the family Christmas card– your friends now treat it as a yearly tradition. Sure it’s not tax deductible, but paying for your flight to Tokyo is certainly more admirable than giving to the local homeless shelter.

9) If that doesn’t work, just ask Santa for a sixth star and act surprised when he swipes your backup credit card. Also, you can just write off a year’s worth of late mortgage payments. So we’ve been told.

10) Judge everyone for going shopping on Black Friday instead of “opting outside.” Don’t forget to hashtag all the staged pictures of yourself trail running in a local municipal park.

11) Fill your kids’ stockings with Run Gum and give your wife your unworn, “unisex” New York City Marathon race premium.

13) Tell your spouse your New Year’s resolution is to up your game and run an ultramarathon. Better yet, tell your spouse that their New Year’s resolution will be to head up your support crew. They’ll love the experience of changing your socks at aid stations through the night, right before you collapse into a chair at mile 80 and take a DNF.

14) Take off your shirt and film your kids with a GoPro as you ride an e-bike alongside them on the Turkey Trot. The memories will be priceless and everyone will love you for it. Well, at least one person will.

15) Recommend that they listen to The Drop, a running podcast that’s not about running. Better yet, sign them up for level 5 of Winter GRIT, and tell them they have to run 300 miles outside during the month of January.