How To Finish A Race: A Grimace or A Smile?

One of the things that fascinate me about the racing experience is that no matter how many times you may have run the exact same course at the exact same date every year with the exact same people, there is always something unique about each race that makes it unlike any of the others you may have run before. Sometimes it is a new sight you’ve never seen, or maybe just a new perspective on something you’ve always known. Other times, it’s a feeling you’ve never felt or a thought you’ve never had while running a course at a speed that you’ve not been accustomed to. And then there are times, few and far between, when you see, feel, or hear something in a race that is so truly scintillating or inspiring, you can’t help but be changed by it. And then you wonder for a while long after the race has past why you’ve never noticed it before. I call these my “A-hah” moments, and I believed I had one while running arguably my worst race of the year Sunday (Please see my race report in my last post if you need a recap).

As I mentioned previously, during the latter part of the 10K race while I was running fast past many of the slower runners to reclaim some of the time I had lost in the port-a-potty, I saw more than a few disparities in the shoes, attire and form between the middle-of-the-pack runners and the frontrunners that I generally run with. One of the more interesting differences I noticed was the fashion by which both parties approach the finish line. Usually, when I come across the final mile or half mile marker of a race, I am gearing up for the final sprint toward the finish line. As a result, if anyone has ever seen me in the last 0.2 or 0.1 mile in a road race, I am biting my lip and have a strained and menacing grimace on my face. (Maybe that’s why Brightroom has never offered to capture me crossing the finish line…Their camera would probably break from the sheer hideousness of the photo!) And judging by the extreme competition, painful grunts and heavy breathing I see and hear all around me at the end of every road race, my competitors and fellow runners all share in my philosophy as well. So imagine my surprise when, at the end of the 10K race on Sunday, I see people jogging slowly across the finish line, with perfect smiles on their faces and their hands raised high in the air like they have just completed a marathon. Even the announcer guy at the end commented how the smiles coming across the finish line were so pretty they could be used for a toothpaste commercial! I was flabbergasted. Smiles? Hands in air? What? I just never see that in the crowd that I usually finish with. We’re usually too busy sucking air or trying not to fall over to care how we look crossing the finish line. Maybe that’s why no one sped up with me towards the end of this race. Instead, people were moving to one side and letting me through like I was a tailgater on the left lane of a major highway. I felt bad, but maybe shouldn’t have. They were all busy preparing for their photo op!

After I recovered from the exhaustion of running the last 0.2 mile at a 5:45 pace and grabbed two cups of hot chocolate from the Gatorade dispenser (weird…) I walked back toward the finish line partly to reflect on my poor performance and partly to survey whether runners were actually finishing the race with more smiles than grimaces. And sure enough, healthy teeth and victory signs dominated the end of the contest. Wasn’t even close.

As I walked slowly in the cold back to my humble abode after the race, I thought about why I was so miserable about one bad performance in one race that I’ve run maybe ten times before, and why these people who are so much slower than me, are perfectly content to just finish. (I hope I don’t sound too facetious, because I am not good enough to pull that off..) But maybe I’m running with the wrong crowd. Maybe I need to just not care about running fast anymore and just jog my races so I can too smile and be victorious at the finish. How come no one has ever mentioned this to me before; the fact that the back-of-the-pack have so much more fun than the front-of-the-pack? I like to have fun while I’m racing too. Maybe a shift in perspective is in order here…A-hah!