“Why do you run so many races?” Asks Chloe, a 26-year-old, former NCAA Division I middle-distance runner and trainer at Elite Fitness Training. I could tell she’d been dying to ask me this for a while, though she’d been unable to work all the judgment out of her voice in the time it took her to work up the nerve. “Wouldn’t you rather run a few races a year and run them well?”
I shrugged, as well as one can with a weighted barbell across her shoulders. “I do only run a few races a year that I care about. The rest are just training runs.”
“Yeah, but all those times are out there. I wouldn’t want those bad times associated with my name.” Says the woman who has a profile page on her University’s athletic department website.
“When was the last time you Googled me to study my race times?” I asked her.
“Well, never,” she admitted, sheepishly. “But still. Those times are out there.”
I finished first of one in my age group at the Swan Lake Marathon in South Dakota last June. There were 40 entrants, it was 88 degrees, and I walked a few miles because it was just too hot not to. Yep; those results are out there.
Indeed they are, I thought. But here’s the thing — for the small handful of people that will, in fact, Google my race times (you need something better to do), I expect one of three reactions: (1) wow, she’s slow; (2) wow, she’s fast; or (3) wow, we run practically the same pace. Such is life. You can’t wait until you’re the best at something to do it; and you can’t only do those things that you are the best at. There will always be someone better than you. And there will always be someone who is not impressed by whatever amazing feat you are accomplishing. I’ve learned not to get spun up about it; I’m going to do whatever makes me happy. With 40 races on the calendar in 2017, there are bound to be some slow times, but I don’t think there will be any “bad times.”
Why do I run so many races? Because I can. Because there is no more magical place on Earth than the start line of a race. And because I know the courage it to put myself out there will make me better in the long run.