To Run or To Race
Finding the middle ground.
When I started running I was absolutely certain I’d never race. I wasn’t a serious runner, I told myself. I was an imposter, padding away into the woods quite happily on my own, like a badger at dusk.
I didn’t want to find out if I was faster than someone else. Running was a way for me not to care about comparisons. Racing seemed to be all about that. I just wanted to run.
But then I did a race: a moderately hilly 50km covering sand and shingle and moor and singletrack and bog and fireroad. And I loved it. Nearly every single minute.
I had no idea what I was doing, of course. I took so much food for the checkpoints - wraps with tuna and rice, chocolate and peanut butter brownies, banana loaf, wine gums, four flavours of raw bars, chocolate, bananas, dried mango, jelly babies, salt and vinegar peanuts - and carried even more. I had no clue what to eat. (Still don’t, as it happens. I just know it’s a tiny fraction of what I once thought).1
My amateurism was such that I’d decanted a can of Monster into a plastic bottle for the final checkpoint, which led only to pain.
“Training” was done in blissful ignorance. There was no structure or routine, I just went out and ran when I felt like it. I was certain I had to run the distance before I raced it, so I did, a couple of times. I thought that’s what everyone did.
In the end and in spite of my blunders I did better than I expected, finishing 11th of nearly a hundred starters. My resounding memory from the finish is that I wanted to keep running. I wasn’t done. I wanted it to be longer, to just keep going.
I thought that was it, I was actualised as a racer then. Desperate to enter something else, but unable to because of cancellations, I signed up for a race I wasn’t ready for. It was far enough in the future to prepare, I reasoned.
I can’t remember if it was one year or two, the lockdown years are mashed together, but at any rate that race was delayed, then maybe delayed again. The target drifted and my enthusiasm waned. Then it became a burden that nearly killed running altogether.
Running became about what I should be doing, rather than what I felt like doing. It transmorphed into something purposeful, rather than something that was simply enjoyable, and I didn’t like it at all.
The answer (I can clearly see now but couldn’t then) was just to run and not worry about how effective it was. But I didn’t. Instead my response was to push it to one side and do anything else instead. I went surfing. I dusted off my skateboards. I rode my bike. I spent hours in the shed on non-essential woodwork projects. All in the name of not running, because every time I thought about it I’d get stressed out. Fuck You, running, went my internal dialogue. Don’t tell me where and when and how I should run.
But I learnt a lot. I knew then that I wasn’t a racer after all, I was simply a runner. And as the day rolled round I’d already decided I wasn’t going to show up.
Making that decision was like dropping an enormous weight. I felt immediately lighter, almost physically. And straight away I wanted to go for a run. I knew it was right, despite also knowing I’d cycle back to it every so often in a grim thought spiral.
On the day of the race I wasn’t sure what to do. I returned a non-committal response to some friends who messaged the night before about watching our other friend compete. I felt sure I’d be miserable. But at the last minute I raced to the summit of Carn Mor Dearg to meet them.
Our friend appeared from the mist on the approach to the ridge in second place and we were like giddy kids, elated by his effort. We careered back down the hill to see him at the next checkpoint then dot watched for the next few hours to see him eventually finish 3rd, an incredible result in a major race.
What really struck me about that day was not how bad I felt, quite the opposite. I’d performed weeks of internal penance about not running. I fully expected to be at my lowest ebb on race day, to feel woefully inadequate for not just pulling my socks up and putting in the mileage, even if I didn’t feel like it. But instead I was overjoyed to see a friend run so well, and to share that excitement with others.
I’ve raced since, but I don’t consider myself to be a racer. It’s just another element of running to be enjoyed when you’re in the mood. I don’t prepare, I just run when I feel like it. During the race I try hard, but I try to enjoy it harder.2
This approach is antithetical to how I’ve approached almost everything else in my life. But that’s a good thing for me. I’ve quit things I really enjoyed because I took them too seriously and the anger and frustration outweighed the enjoyment - golf, basketball…even surfing for extended periods.
Running and racing has taught me that I can get fulfillment from things without cut-throat competitiveness. It’s taught me to relax.
Some days it still seems a bit paradoxical to feel no animosity towards the other competitors. My attitude was always that if you’re not turning up to compete there’s no point in being there.3 Just taking part and having fun is a concept a former me wouldn’t have believed, much less understood.
But actually we’re just running up and down a hill as fast as we can. There’s something really pure about that. Something childlike.
In my limited experience of racing so far the atmosphere has seemed free of judgement and spite. It’s not like other sports I’ve competed in, not in any way.
Maybe this is a normal competitive experience and I’m just seeing it clearly for the first time. Maybe my attitude has always been mirrored back at me.
Or maybe it’s “just my age”, as my ever-pithy partner told me earlier.
So I’m consciously trying not to take it too seriously, lest I break the spell. There’s definitely some self-preservation in it, knowing how competing in other sports used to make me feel. I love running, I don’t want to spoil it.
Last Sunday I raced up and down a relatively unremarkable hill, into the snow and back. It was a sparkling December day and I cycled to the start alongside a canal that was like plate glass. When I got there I went for a warm up run in the woods, then I raced, went for a cool down run, then cycled home. It was enjoyable from beginning to end.
I enjoyed seeing my friends run well as much as my own run (a minute and a bit quicker than last year). I put in effort, but there was no stress. In the past I’d have reflected that this meant I wasn’t working hard enough, and it might still be true. But then, would I go as well if I wasn’t relaxed? Who’s to say. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy it as much.
And in my defence, your honour, I did have a sprint battle to finish then spew after crossing the line in front of a big crowd of people. I’d call it a casual spew, but there was nothing subtle about it.
But it was great. All of it.
I can’t help seeing a little sadness in racing, though. It’s over too quickly. Those fleeting joys can’t be captured. Your experience aligns with your ethos or talent, but is no less rich at either end of the scale, and everyone around you - runners, spectators, marshalls, members of the public, strangers and friends - contributes to an atmosphere that’s joyous and celebratory, but also transient.
Before you know it, the last of the marshalls are drifting off the hill, old men are taking off wet shoes in car boots, and the foldaway registration table is packed and gone.
And then the moment becomes the past, and you’ll never get it back. There’ll be other races, sure. There might even be other races that are similar, but they won’t be the same.
It’s these moments of transitory joy, or effort, or companionship, moments shared with friends and strangers, that make racing both beautiful and tragic; the most pointless thing ever, yet perhaps the greatest thing in the world. I’m sure this is why most people do it. Sometimes life is about doing things that are frivolous and pointless.
And if this is my experience - a middling runner trying not to take it seriously - I can’t imagine how the winners feel, or the heroic back markers, for that matter.
I’m still not totally sure what I think of racing, but right now I’m finding traction in a middle ground. It’s a version of racing that feels a lot like just running, and that works for me.
The next year I went back and didn’t eat anything on the morning of the race or until around mile 15. That’s something I’ve continued. I never eat before a race now, and I know I can comfortably go 15-20 miles without eating at all.
Honestly that makes me feel a little bit sick to write. Maybe it’s just the cliche. Either way, my younger self would have slapped me about the face.
If I was further towards the front maybe it’d be different. Perhaps I’d be different.