Forums >General Running>Running Customs Around the World?
Hi,
I'm working on an article about running customs around the world: different foods they have at races in different countries, different things spectators yell, different traditions (ie. don't yell on your left, etc). I was hoping some people here might have some examples, ideas from places they've been, or where they live?
Thanks!
Kelly
#artbydmcbride
The races I have been to have tables with little paper cups of water, provided about every two miles. They sometimes have a porta-pottie nearby also.
At the finish line there are usually chunks of bagels or orange slices if it has been a long race.
Runners run
I live in the USA, but spent about two months in San Jose, Costa Rica last year. While that's not enough to get a full view of running down there, I did notice a few things that are different compared to the USA:
- People are more likely to run in parks or neighborhood tracks instead of streets or sidewalks.
- I saw more people of varying fitness levels- older, overweight, etc. that were running (and seems to be a compliment to yell something like "good job, fatty!" to somebody who is overweight and running)
- I also saw a lot more people running with knee braces, etc.
- At races, water stations have little plastic baggies with water in them instead of cups. You bite the corner off to drink the water (or you can carry then until you're thirsty).
- There were no on-course porta potties at the HM I ran, and fewer at the start, too.
- They served the national dish gallo pinto (rice and beans) at the finish line in addition to the bananas, etc.
- People are fitness crazy enough that a 6-day a week running program doesn't raise as many eyebrows as it does here.
Interval Junkie --Nobby
Croatia:
Guest runners to the marathon training group runs are given a Bluf with the club logo on it as a souvenir.
Argentina:
During the half marathon almost EVERYONE wore the race shirt during the race.
England:
Distances and paces are in KM, even though these are the peeps who brought us the imperial system. Also, due to ParkRun.org, there are 5K timed runs every single weekend at most parks in the country. For FREE.
2021 Goals: 50mpw 'cause there's nothing else to do
Argentina: During the half marathon almost EVERYONE wore the race shirt during the race.
This was true in Costa Rica as well. At the expo, people got their names put on their shirts, but I don't know if that was just that race or if it's common. But everybody had their shirts on for the race.
England United Kingdom: Distances and paces are in KM, even though these are the peeps who brought us the imperial system. Also, due to ParkRun.org, there are 5K timed runs every single weekend at most parks in the country. For FREE.
England United Kingdom:
The UK is complicated, and it depends on what you are doing. We mix Imperial and Metric freely depending on the circumstances. So, 5K and 10K races have the markers in KMs, where as 5 mile, 10 mile, Half Marathon and Marathon races are all done in miles.
It's then personal preference as to whether people track personal mileage or pace in KMs or Miles with no real convention. It always used to be done in miles, but nowadays, with the advent of parkruns and the proliferation of 10Ks, a lot of "newer" runners use KMs because the events they run are in KMs and/or because the training programme they are following is in KMs.
This seems very different to what I see in the US ...
Barcelona - DC Rainmaker reports that, at least at the Barcelona HM, the runners circle their assigned corrals as a warmup (and they wear the race shirt during the race). I can vouch for the race shirt on race day thing as when I was in Barcelona I witnessed a race where most were wearing the shirt. Check out his site for a video of the runners going round the corrals. About 1/3 of the way down the page:
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/02/barcelona-marathon-report.html
This is all really helpful! Thanks!
I noticed in Ireland they like to mix up their K's and miles too. Crazy. And, yeah, I remember reading that on DC Rainmaker about running in circles. I've heard some interesting pre-race warm-up routines...
I ran a small marathon in England and they had bread pudding at some of the water stops. That is a little different from what i have seen in the US.
I have run a lot of shorter races in Spain: 5k, 8k. One thing I have noticed at those races is that just about everyone was wearing their running club's uniform. So it appears that just about everyone was in some running club.
One day at a time
My daughter studied in Spain one semester last year. She was 16. She said NONE of the kids ran. She ran in a "5K" race and got an incredible time - she said there was no way it was anywhere near a 5K! And she won the race! She's a middle-of-the-packer in Maine, so that was fun for her.
I'm in Canada - we mark our races in KMs. Nike just came and did a women's 15K run and it was marked in KMs and miles. But usually it's just KMs.
We like to have funny signs "run like a zombie's chasing you" "there's beer at the end" etc. Bigger races in Toronto have neighbourhood cheering sections where they raise money for local improvements.
Lots of races are fundraising things and not put on by for-profit organizations.
food at the end is usually fruit/bread related.
Always water on course. Sometimes also some sort of electrolyte drink.
First or last...it's the same finish line
HF #4362
Running is making a comeback in Russia after many years. But new races are often copied from American and European runs, like color runs, park runs, music marathons, you can find them in Moscow and St.Petersburg. They are popular among younger runners and beginners. Old style races are still found in smaller cities, fewer people run there but do it faster
Unusual nutrition during the old school marathons may include salted black (rye) bread and warm black tea with sugar.
I am in New Zealand. Things I would highlight would include:
- everything is in sensible metric kilometres.
- we have way less prizes. From what I can see from forums and Facebook, in USA you seem to get trophies for very placing in every age group ("5th place male in the 44-49 group") . Your prizegivings must last hours. Here, the winner would be lucky to get a physical prize at all.
- most races don't have medals either, so the American custom of treasuring and displaying race medals doesn't happen here. You're more likely to get a medal for a marathon, but even then, not all marathons have medals
- way less pointless "swag" in race packs
- it's 50:50 on wearing the race shirt during the race. I don't, but lots of people do. Many races don't have a shirt at all
- due to smaller population and smaller size of races, corrals are much less common at race starts
- I would never expect to find food served at a race. Maybe a banana at the end, but usually no food. Just water or sports drink at drink stops and at the end. Depends on who is sponsoring the race. If a beer company sponsored the race, they might have beer at the end.
- no space blankets at the end of marathons
runktrun
kellyomara - are you posting from Ireland?
If not, I'll add what I noticed when I used to live in Galway. First of all, it's athletics, not running, and I found it to be pretty isolated from the general public. Community races seemed to catch everyone by surprise, yet they were well supported by sponsors (Galway Bay 10mi, now a different distance, was sponsored by a regional health network.) Cotton shirts instead of tech shirts, or the if tech, they fit horribly, and about a 50/50 split of racing in the shirt or not. Definitely a decent amount of races; most weekends there was something within an hours drive, but not well advertised. Definitely pretty competitive and almost on par with well established local US races. Food was not a big deal at the end of races, but medals were usually awarded to the top finishers. Overall, I'd say both the trail/mountain/fell and road running community is pretty robust in Ireland. When I lived there, there were none of the feel-good-participatory color runs and mud runs. the emphasis was on competition. And the correct congratulatory remark is "well done."
Not running for my health, but in spite of it.
I ran the Seoul Marathon (S. Korea) in March and was surprised when I got my race shirt in the packet and it did not have any race logo, name etc. on it. It was a nice cool-weather top from Asics and had a single Asics logo on it. I packed it away for a cold day and went to the race. EVERYONE (well, almost everyone) else was in the official race top! The 10k had a late start and merged onto the course about 9km from the Olympic Stadium where both races finished together. You could tell the marathoners from the 10k runners because everyone running the 10k was in their race top too but the 10k got black and the marathon got blue.
Is this normal EVERYWHERE other than the USA? (I saw a lot of people in the race top at the Rotterdam Marathon a few years back; not so much in Napoli, Italy).