Written by: Jeff Banowetz
Posted: Wednesday, 25 June 2008
I talked to a former highly competitive runner the other day,
who lamented the fact that he wasn’t fast anymore. He’s in his 50s, but he’s
still out there doing races, even if he can’t approach the times he once did.
“The funny thing is, the people I’m competing against now
aren’t the same people I used to race against when I was fast. They’re all
late-comers to the sport. I guess they’ve got fresher legs.”
Maybe so. But the fact is that many of the competitive runners
from 20 or 30 years ago have abandoned the sport. It seems for many, the
inevitable slower times are too much to bear. Of course, it also may be that
after dedicating so much time to running, they’re ready to move on to other
things.
I’m sure it’s a combination of those and countless other
reasons. But I’m surprised by the number of good runners who’ve told me they’re
not interested in doing races “just to finish.” And while I understand that
mentality, I don’t think it needs to drive people from the sport. After playing
against Michael Jordan, do you need to give up pick-up games in the driveway?
Speed isn’t simply the seconds ticking on a clock. Just
because you can no longer run as fast as you did in college doesn’t mean you’re
finished competing. Speed is about pushing your body as far as it can go. Just
because you can’t hit your old times doesn’t diminish the accomplishment.
Your body changes, your life changes, your goals change. But
take those things into account and see what you can do. You’d be surprised at
the thrills you can find from speed training, even if you’re not as fast as you
used to be.
I love watching the leaders give everything they’ve got as
the head toward the finish line. But the biggest cheers usually come toward the
end of the race, when the 80-year-old runners, usually by themselves, head down
the home stretch.
I hope to be lucky enough to be that guy someday. I’d rather
not be there alone.
No matter what your speed or motivation, we hope all runners will join us in taking part in a unique event from Nike that we’re starting this month. On August 31, Nike will be holding the Human Race, an attempt to get more than 1 million runners to lace up their shoes and celebrate the sport on the same day. (See page 14 for more info.) Chicago’s one of four cities in the U.S. taking part, and we hope you’ll join us at Soldier Field for an event not to be missed.
Windy City Sports is part a group of regional fitness publications across the country. And to help train for the Human Race, we’re setting up some friendly competition between the magazines. Starting this month, you’ll be able to log miles through our website, www.windycitysports.com, with the Nike+ system. If you haven’t tried Nike+, it allows you to track your time, pace and mileage while you run and download it to your computer. We hope that any miles you run you’ll add to our total.
I’m planning on hitting some fun runs in July and August with my own Nike+, and I’ll have the dates and times on our website. I hope you can join me to see why Nike is so excited about the system. If you’re interesting in organizing your own fun runs, shoot me an e-mail.
In any case, while this is all in fun, we’re as competitive as the next guy and proud of the running community in Chicago. So let’s do our best to show New York and California just what we’ve got. We hope to see you out there helping us log the miles. For more information on the Human Race, visit www.nikeplus.com.
See you out there.
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