Sunday, March 21, 2010

Not Chicked!

This post is dedicated to all of you who have worked harder at running today than I have.
Men run, women run, boys and girls run, animals run, and I run (yes, my own category). Sometimes I run fast, and sometimes I run slow. I have been working on becoming a better runner since I began in September of 2008, but I am still slow and I don't work at it consistently enough to get much better.

So when a girl/woman/obese/old/young/differently-abled/etc. person runs faster than me, it is my responsibility to
trip them into the gutter
cry and stamp my feet
yell 'foul' and report them to race officials
run faster and injure something else

Think, 'there goes a person who is running better than me right now. I bet he or she put a lot of work into this run.'

It is not a good idea to think that I have been 'chicked' when a girl passes me, or think 'how does that old f... do it?' Because now I know how it is happening. They have put more work into it than I have. They got up early when they didn't want to, they ran in the rain, cold, heat. They massaged and iced their injuries. They read more articles and blogs (no they didn't!). They stretched after running and stayed hydrated. They ate apples instead of cheeseburgers.

It's completely awesome for another person to pass me and shouldn't be thought of as some miracle. Jimi Hendrix once got really mad at a reporter for talking about his gift as a guitar player. He said that he spent his entire youth locked in his room trying to play like Chuck Berry. He worked every second for every second of fame on stage.


Running at our level is difficult. Most of us can't do it naturally. We suffer, we train, we strain, we succeed, we fall back, and go out again. There are no gifts in running, but if I continue to work hard enough and long enough, I will continue to run in proximity with other people and that is something to be enjoyed (even they are passing me like I'm standing still).

5 comments:

RunningLaur said...

Hey, you kicked my butt those last 3 miles on Friday - so at least you didn't get chicked by this chick. Just keep remembering, hard work pays off. Hard work pays off.

mariag said...

Remember that in order to be passed by someone, you would actually have to be out there running or walking or biking or doing some physical activity. You can't get "chicked" sitting on the couch. Be satisfied by what you are doing and if you want to do more, then just (you guessed it) do more. Love you!

Anonymous said...

One thing I've learned is that you can't predict how fast someone is by appearance alone- that's for sure! Thankfully, I run to race against myself. If I compared myself to others...I probably wouldn't have lasted very long. That's hard to do sometimes, but you have the right attitude!

The Boring Runner said...

Great post.

Rio is totally right. I'm always amazed at the 250 lb 50 year old guys who go BLOWING by me like I am standing still. Makes me want to work all the harder.

For that matter, I was amazed by the various shapes and sizes during IM AZ. THOSE guys / gals were hard core.

BTW - foot is killing me after F'ing 3 miles yesterday. Scheduling an appt for Friday when I get back to PHX....... GRRR

Running Through Life said...

Great post! You are absolutely right, those people who pass you have worked their arse off to get there. The same holds true when we get the chance to pass others, we know we earned it.