Won anything lately?

I was thinking about that question last week when the folks from the Respiratory Health Association stopped by Channel 7 to give me the trophy for winning the media challenge for the Hustle up the Hancock.  It was a really nice trophy, and gesture on their part.  Our General Manager, Emily Barr even stopped by to help accept the award.

I realize they do this media award to try to help foster relationships with media to bring attention to their focus of improving respiratory health in Chicago.  My wife works for them.  And I also realize that it comes down to a competition between just a couple of media members who take the competition part more seriously.  And further, I realize I was well behind the actual winner of the event.  But, hey, it is a nice trophy!

And it did get me thinking about winning.  I have been running for about three decades, and I believe I haven't won anything of significance for at least the last two of them.  In fact, the last races I recall winning outright were in high school track.  Since then there have been individual goals I have met.  Finishing in the top five on my college cross country team meets was a goal I managed to accomplish, but it wasn't like I was anywhere near winning the race.  More recently, qualifying for the Boston marathon was a goal that I accomplished.  But I was more than an hour behind the actual winner!

I have been part of winning teams in recent years.  My friends at CNA put a couple of distance relay teams together for various events that we won our division for.  And ABC-7 won the team competition last year at the Hancock event.

The point I am taking a while to get to is this:  Rarely do any of us really win overall competitions in running.  Almost none of us are even in contention.  Still, I have run dozens and dozens of races in the last 20 years or so, and trained thousands of miles for those races, without hope of winning. 

The thing I have determined after all those races finishing back in the pack, is that I usually feel pretty good when the race is over regardless.  If I meet my pre-race goal, it's a great bonus.  Sometimes the goals are modest, and sometimes they are ambitious.  Certainly the bigger goals are more satisfying.  And the interesting thing is that winning a trophy for the Hustle up the Hancock, nice as it was, failed to give me much satisfaction.  That's because my time was quite a bit slower than my goal.

I guess that's a long way of saying "winning isn't everything".  Maybe in team sports "it's the only thing".  But in running, it really doesn't matter much to most of us.  We run because we enjoy it.  We enjoy challenging ourselves.  And completing our runs, and our races, as well as meeting our goals makes us winners.

That kind of sounds a little like the philosophy of my friend John 'The Penguin' Bingham from Runner's World.  Coincidently, he is speaking at the Dick Pond running store in Elmhurst, and the information is posted below.

Meantime, I hope you have some winning runs in your future.  I'll see you on the roads...

Dick Pond Athletics-Elmhurst 124 N. York Elmhurst, Illinois 60126

Comments

[MIke H.]

John,

As a long time member of the middle of the pack club, I consider it a win every time I can lace up my running shoes and head out the door for a run.

Remember what the Penguin says:

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."

[John]

The Penguin is the best, and I wholeheartedly agree. Especially as I get older, I appreciate the ability to simply lace up the shoes! John G.