The Voice of Painful Experience – 02/2008

Friends & Rivals – More Important Than the Hardware
by Nyle Robinson

Road racing is like no other sport I can think of. Where else do those with the least experience start at the same time as the very best and do the exact same thing on exactly the same playing field? The Chicago Marathon will attract the world’s best but they respond to the same starting gun on the same street as everyone else. The elite runners at the front may get paid many thousands of dollars. They may even set a world record but they will cross the same finish lines as the rest of us. If it is hot it is hot for all. If it rains it rains on all. Can you think of any other sport where you can say that? Triathlon is close but they start in waves. Besides, triathlon is one or our relatives. After all, running is involved.

The fact that running is an experience shared by all participants leads to another thing that is unique to our sport. It is common for your fiercest rivals to be your best friends. Think about it. In team sports you have friends and they are generally on your team. You have rivals. They are probably on some other team. When you are participating in a game you want your friends to do well. Since they are probably on the same team their doing well means something good for you as well. When you compete against your rival, their doing well generally means bad things for you and your friends. Oh, I know there are exceptions, such as pick-up basketball games, but when it gets down to competition with officials and where they keep official score this is the norm.

How does that play out in road running, which normally is not a team sport? First, who are your rivals? You probably start with those people in your age group. Of course you feel good when you beat them; particularly those who run a similar pace to you every race. Who else? Probably your running partners. Maybe they are your age and maybe they aren’t. They might even be a mix of men and women. It is still fun to compete with your friends.

Now, who tends to be our friends? Well, of course we start with our training partners. Why else would we spend hours with the same person or persons if we did not enjoy their company? If we extend our circle of friends farther who are we most likely to include, probably people in our age group. After all, who is going to be more like you than those in your same age group? They grew up with the same music, events and clothing trends we would like to forget. They probably even have the same series of running experiences, not to mention injuries.

So, our rivals also tend to be our best friends. Again, that exists to some extent in other sports but it is not a natural outgrowth of the sport itself. I started to realize this about running a long time ago. I got hooked up with a set of friends who ran together at least twice a week. They included Phil Johnson, Dr. Jim Fanning and Dan Leikvold. We were so competitive each wanted to finish first….. at the end of our TRAINING RUNS! In races we warmed up together. We started together and we generally ran together until one could drop the others. If we went to out-of-town races we drove there together. There was nobody we wanted to beat more and nobody we wanted to see do well more than the members of our group. We were competing against each other but we were like a cross country team. If I could not get a trophy, I hoped Jim would. He was always in my age group. We were Tour de France fans and declared the winner from our group in each race as the holder of the yellow jersey until the next race. When it came time to put together teams for the Lincoln-to-Lincoln Relay we formed a team and called it Yellow Jersey. Actually, we did it in French, which upset the Director, who had to announce our team name to give us our awards.

Years have passed since then. Have things changed now that I am 50? Yes, things have gotten even more competitive. Just before Abe’s Amble my fellow 50-54 competitors “Beacon” Bob Thompson, Steve Wagner, Jim Cinotto and I were chatting and Bob joked that we would probably finish within five places out of the 800 or so finishers. Not only was he right but we added Ricky Taylor. Early on four of us were within a few seconds and we finished within a minute of each other. I got an award that day. In spite of running great, Bob, Steve and Jim finished just seconds too late.

The scene played out again at Frostbite with even more actors. I had some problems early but still finished a respectable 1:12:21. Not bad considering I had to walk a few times. Dave Floyd finished 11th and won our age group. From there it was thick with us. Dan Dungan was second and 18th overall. Allen Andrews, who I have been training with for more than a decade was 21st followed by Curt Winhold, 25th, Kurt Kennard, 26th, Bob T., 27th, Steve W., 28th, and finally me. I was not happy about my time but I was 30th out of 208 finishers. Although only eighth out of 20 in my age group! Still it was hard to whine too much. I did not beat my rivals but they are also my friends and they had good times. I was particularly pleased for Allen who had not raced much recently and enjoyed his first race since turning 50.

To make the point about how much we respect each other, Allen, Bob, Steve, Kurt, Jim Cinotto and I gathered minutes after we finished and chatted about the race and had a few laughs. The biggest laughs were about how being old not making it any easier to win awards. Sure, Allen, you beat all of us but you didn’t get an award either! Each of us shared our stories about doing way better than we had just done without getting an award. My story was about finishing seventh out of about 150 without getting an award. Everyone else in the group had a similar story.

Past President Jim Dahlquist tells me he once finished 5th without an award. That is about as bad as it gets. But, we are mature enough to know it’s not about the awards. Each of us is competitive. We love to get awards but it is not like they are an entitlement. Awards tend to depend on the economics of the race and often on the number who have entered in each age group in the race in the previous year. You know what the awards are going to be before you sign-up. We 50 year-olds have a good idea who is going to show-up at races. We know we will probably run well and we know we probably will not get prizes. Women in the two 40 age groups probably have it even worse than we do. Patty Schaefer won her SRRC age group two -years in a row. In 2007 she only managed to finish third but she did win the Most Improved Female. How can that be? Joy Guardia and Martha Nessler finished 1st and 2nd overall and both are in her age group. Sometimes it is just a matter of chance who shows up but that also is part of the fun. My group dreads Joe Thiel joining us soon but we like him too. It will not discourage us from racing.

I think most SRRC members are like me. I run for the competition. Sometimes an award is involved but my rivals are always involved. I run for my physical health. Awards do not help me with that but my friends do. I run to be my best. Friends and rivals help with that. An award sits on my shelf. I run for my mental health. Awards are nice but friends are far more important. I run for the challenge. Rivals make the challenge. I run for the fun. Friends are the most important part of that.