Running Perspective

On Facebook, someone posted an article about how a lot of competitive runners are upset about the perspective of younger runners. Many younger runners just aren't all that interested in running being a big competition for them. They go. They run. They don't care where they place.  The older runners, especially the one who was writing the article, found this to just be awful. They saw this as something horrible about that generation and something wrong with our society as a whole. They even quoted a guy who runs another running competition who called this 'communism.'

Sigh.

Okay, look, before you start pulling out the old standards of 'this is because of everyone being a winner' and 'everyone gets a medal,' I want you to consider some facts here.

1. People who are competitive about everything are obnoxious.  They're not great and noble. They're not amazing and more American than the rest of us. They're obnoxious. And if you've never met a competitive person that you found to be obnoxious......you could quite possibly be obnoxious yourself.

That isn't to say all competition is bad. It's not. I'm competitive about many things. I love the feeling of winning when I've tried my hardest and worked for it. However, that doesn't mean I turn EVERY SINGLE THING into a competition.  Although I suspect I may still be obnoxious anyway.

2. It's . . . a run. This isn't about whatever business you're in. This isn't about making money. It isn't about the direction of the nation. This is a bunch of people running for whatever reason. Most often, this is about people running for charity. If they're doing it for reasons other than MUST WIN COMPETITION, it's okay. It's really okay. They may be competitive in other aspects of their lives, like, you know, the important ones.

3. A lot of people are competing in a far more important battle during this run. I'm not a runner and I have never entered that kind of thing. However, I know a lot of people who have an for many of them, it may be their first time. It may be a goal they set for themselves 18 months ago and they have worked and worked and worked to achieve it.

Many people in our country are in poor health. Many people have patterns of behavior that have lead away from a sound body instead of toward it. The process of changing that may be, for many of them, the biggest and hardest challenge of their lives.

Every day that they train is a battle won against their old habits. Every time they choose to work out over sitting and doing nothing, it is a struggle against their old ways. When they finally get to the point of entering that marathon, it isn't the competition for them, it is their victory. It is their achievement of a goal that, at one point, they didn't believe to be possible.

So yeah, the perspective on running may be changing, but that doesn't mean the whole world is falling apart. It just means things are changing.

Besides, as long as we have drag queens, we will always have competition in the world.