Just Don't Say Anything

Running is a fascinating form of competition.

Runners run against themselves. Yet at the same time they're running against you.

They can be neurotically motivated. Running three miles a second or two faster is a monumental achievement.

I respect runners. They run in the cold rain, when they're hungry and when they're full. They wear tight spandex pants and sunglasses at night, yet they aren't pro wrestlers.

I am not a runner.

If I am to run, it must be after something, not to a destination. I'm too willing to say that whatever it is I'm trying to get to can wait.

I generally do my running chasing basketballs, three or four times a week, for two hours at a time. It leaves me exhausted and satisfied to be sore the next day.

This is quite different from running. I'm not sure I like runners. Or at least the overall profile of the majority of runners I've dealt with.

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At my workplace, we are involved in a corporate coalition among our community that competes with other large corporations in races.

We compete in general race events, and then we break out the number to determine who can best combine participation numbers and fast runners to win a big plaque that goes in the lobby to show everyone how fit and committed we are.

I'm often neurotically recruited to run in these races, because apparently I'm a decent runner. I used to participate in just about any race that provided a free t-shirt (which I would promptly cut the sleeves off into a basketball shirt).

During one particular race, I decided ultimately that I really just hated running. It felt good to finish. And you got a t-shirt. But was it really worth it?

So I quit.


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But this one I could do.

Downtown. Downhill. One mile. See how fast you can get there, and next thing you know you're done.

Free t-shirt, too.

The week before I was to run in the race, I was sitting in my house on a random weeknight. The basketball gym had been closed because it's basketball season and it's always booked for different leagues.

I was on my fourth rum and coke. It struck me that I'm lazy. Kind of a lazy athlete.

I'm in excellent cardiovascular condition, yet I do nothing. I roll off the couch. Go run back and forth after a ball for two hours. Then lie back down on the couch. Sometimes I take a shower, sometimes I simply fall asleep.

I decided that if I were going to run in a race, I needed to do it right. I needed to see how fast I could run a mile. I wanted to be a runner for just this race.

Motivated and competitive against myself.

So, I got in my truck and measured a mile around the neighborhood.

I put on some shoes and basketball shorts, grabbed my cell phone, went out into the cold and set off as soon as the time clicked to 12:17.

If I could run a mile in seven-something minutes, that would be a success. Because, you know, when it comes to running only downhill and not having finished off four liquor drinks, I could probably do better when the race came around.

I ran a mile and looked down. The phone read "12:24." Whether it was 12:24 and one second or 12:24 and 59 seconds didn't matter.

I felt legimate.

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On race night, I took note of the serious faces around me. The runners who run before the race starts!

People were talking "strategy." I asked a runner prototype guy what strategy I should have.

"What are you shooting for?" he asked me.

"Seven-something."

"It's a sprint," he said, "so just start out fast and don't worry about wearing down.

"Cool."

The faces were grim. The race began.

As I got a good ways down the road, I came to the part of the race that I come to in every race, where psychology and physiology collide.

Or you could call it "rationalization."

"How can I stop, right now, and not be humiliated for doing it?"

There was no way. If I quit, I was a quitter. If I walked the rest of the way, I was even worse.

So I kept running as fast as I could, praying it would end soon and mercifully.

I was a runner. Isn't this what they do? I'm not so much different, I thought. I'm competitive. I'm pushing myself, almost neurotically.

Just about this moment, when I'm at my most-desperate yet most-determined, a lone runner comes behind me. Just me and him.

And I learn how different we are.

"Good job," he says. Then he passes on.

This is where running and me end our on-again, off-again relationship.

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I'm not used to passive-aggressive competition. I don't congratulate someone as if I'm in the process of beating them.

Maybe afterwards. "Good game" or something like that.

But, to me, passing someone in a race and saying "good job" strikes me as ... pompous ... in a backhanded, dishonest kind of way.

If I were to drain a 3-pointer in someone's face, would I immediately say, "But nice try, you almost got to it. Don't worry, you'll get better?"

Someone can completely own me -- you know, break my ankles with a crossover, dunk with his plums in my face, smother me in his superiority -- and I'm perfectly calm and accepting of that. I don't talk when I play as a general personality trait, but it's completely within the code to do it.

So ...

I would rather the guy with the short shorts panting and chugging along smack me on the ass and say, "Hey, loser, have fun watching the bottom of my soles as I destroy you by 30 seconds."

Or, just don't say anything, Mr. Runner Guy.