Why I Run Races

I am running a 10K race this weekend. My last one was three months ago. Right now, beating that time is the most important thing in my life – but it won’t matter after Sunday. In fact, regardless of how I do, I will look forward to my next race in a few months.

If the outcome does not affect me, why do I run races? The short answer is that it makes my life more fun. I get to focus on something over which I have complete control and quickly know whether I was successful. Plus, thanks to online age-grading calculators, I can easily compare my physical efforts at different stages of my life—testing my current frame directly against my younger self to see exactly how efficiently the engine is running.

The longer answer is that running races is good for my psyche. I have aspirational goals for the areas of my life that are most important: my family, my health, my business, and helping my community. I am always striving to improve in those areas but do not have short-term measures of success. In other words, I am process-oriented. Running races, which is completely results-oriented, provides a necessary counterbalance by injecting a spark of excitement.

It took me a while to realize how important it is to have something that lets you focus only on results. I played sports growing up and started running marathons—as well as shorter races—in college. I continued running races in law school, while working as a lawyer, when I went to graduate school, and even after I got married. However, I stopped once kids arrived. As they got older, I became increasingly focused on their athletic competitions. In fact, I became somewhat obsessed. Looking back today at how I acted then, it is obvious that I used my kids’ swim meets and track meets as proxies for the races I should have been running myself. It is also obvious that many parents become over-invested in their own kids’ sports activities because they meet the parents’ need to be results-oriented in some part of their life. Fortunately, I realized that I had a problem while my two younger kids were still teens. My solution was to start running races again.

And I haven't stopped.