You wouldn’t have run today. Sure, you could do the distance. You’ve been on the treadmill all winter long. Sometimes you even do the hill program and speed it up at the end. You’re a faker. You are a hamster on a wheel going nowhere. You are moving your legs and working up a sweat, going through the motions, trying to emulate what real runners do but in the comfort of your own home or in the gym.
What? It’s too cold outside to run? The wind is blowing too hard? There is snow on the ground? Those are your excuses? No those are just the reasons you wouldn’t have run today. Today the temperatures hovered just above freezing and the steady rain that came down was a fraction of a degree from turning to snow. The Han River that the course followed still had chunks of ice in it. The wind blew unmercilessly and the rain blew sideways. The course was packed and the path was completely covered in water in many parts.
I know you wouldn’t have done it. But there were people there. There were people wearing plastic bags to cover themselves from the elements. There were people in the newest, flashiest jackets and tights. There were old runners and there were new runners. One guy who spent the previous month training and had only run one race before was there. He had never really been a runner before and was coerced by his friends to do it. He even bought a new pair of shoes for the occasion. While the wind was blowing and the ice was on the brink of forming he pushed on, cursing the weather and his friends for making him do this.
But despite these seemingly insurmountable challenges and the course that went on for what may have seemed like a bleak, frigid eternity he finished. His hands were numb and he was on the edge of hypothermia. He even finished ahead of many other seasoned “real” runners. So with this race he crossed some sort of line and became a real runner. He doesn’t read the mags or worry about heart rate. He doesn’t know who Hal Higdon is and had never heard of a tempo run. Instead he goes outside and does the unglamorous task of running. And when the weather is at its worst and mortals are in bed or going through the motions on a machine, he is out there putting in the miles. And that is why he is better than you.
