Sign Me Up!

In our kitchen we have one of those big paper calendars you can buy at office supply stores and that (I assume) professional people used to have at their desks to track their meetings before iPhones took over the world. We use our big paper calendar to keep track of where everyone in the family is at any given time.

I have very little on the calendar, but every other weekend or so there is an entry in my hobbled handwriting that says something like “Southern Bellevue Half Marathon, 10k,  and Kids Fun Run for Ingrown Toenails?” (There’s always a question mark at the end, indicating my general lack of commitment to such events.)

 I like to go through the race schedule here in Northwest Runner and put potential races on the family calendar. Note that I don’t usually sign up for anything. That would require commitment.

Usually after a good run where I feel pretty strong and I didn’t crash, I’ll sit down and find interesting races for the next couple of months. On the rare occasions that I have this burst of optimism AND my giant paycheck from Northwest Runner arrives at the same time, I’ll actually register for a race.  I never really know why.

What possesses us to run in these races? We aren’t going to win. As many a reluctant spectator has muttered over the years, we are essentially paying someone else for the pleasure of torturing ourselves. So why sign up?

A lot of runners sign up for races because of the cause the run supports. Cancer research is a popular one. I have no problem with this other than the fact that I think it is a shame we have to hold fundraisers to find cures to diseases. And just about every run these days is a run for a cause. Name your cause, its name is on a technical t-shirt from a half-marathon.

Speaking of t-shirts, what better reason to sign up for a race than to get a shirt? Like many casual runners, I have a closet full of $100 free t-shirts. Some of them are really cool. Most of them have paint or motor oil on them.

I mostly sign up for races out of guilt. I spend a dozen or more hours a week running and staying in shape. I spend paycheck after paycheck on shoes, clothes, and gadgets related to running. I write this column. If I don’t race I sort of feel like I’m doing it all for nothing. So I sign up.

My friends also guilt me into running, whether they know it or not. Cap’n Ron keeps signing up for races and posting about it on Facebook. Guilt. Owen runs a million miles a week and just decides at the last minute to run marathons and ultras because it’s fun. And the ladies from last year’s Ragnar team keep posting awesome results that shame the rest of us. I seem sort of lame if I don’t step up and tie a timing chip to my shoe once in a while.

The races themselves sometimes pressure me into signing up. The threat that a race I really don’t want to run anyway might sell out sometimes makes me break out the Real Running credit card. (This explains why I am running the North Olympic Discovery Marathon despite being nowhere near prepared for it and why I am already signed up for next fall’s Portland Marathon. Sucker.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love race day. Once I am out of bed and have that number pinned to my shirt, I enjoy the low-grade anxiety and the social aspect of the events. I like the challenge of a race. I like having elementary school kids hand me paper cups of water (and if I were rich I would hire a cadre of small children to stand around and hand me water all day).

Races are there to give us a goal on the calendar. Races are there to force us to train and not skip track days. Race days are there to lamely justify our addiction to running.

Race day is for seeing how well you have trained. On race day you have a reason to go a little faster and try a little harder. And if everything comes together, maybe you can set that new PR. That’s why we race.

Sure, we won’t win. But we might beat that guy right in front of us…