Looks can be deceiving on the startline
One of the beauties of running is that it proves the case that you never can tell. You may think you can figure out who’s going to be fast, or who’s going to be last. You may think you can figure out who’s got what it takes to finish a gruelling race.
But you’ll be wrong. Running doesn’t care what gear you wear. Running doesn’t care how lithe you are. Running doesn’t care how smooth and youthful your face is. Running doesn’t care how focused and intense your gaze.
Running has a way of reducing you to a very basic set of core elements. And none of them has very much, if anything, to do with those things – gear, body shape, age, and game face are very poor predictors of outcome when you’re standing on the startline surveying the field.
I got to thinking about this after my podcast co-host Matt Rayment and I chatted to British author and journalist Adharanand Finn for this week’s episode of Dirt Church Radio.
He’s about to publish a book about ultra marathons, The Rise of the Ultra Runners.
Two of Finn’s previous works – Running with the Kenyans, and The Way of the Runner – are in my stack of favourite running books.
In each of those, he immersed himself in two very different and intense running cultures (in Kenya and Japan) to discern what it was about them that made them special.
So he’s a thoughtful guy. Which is why I was initially surprised about something he said.
For the new book, he turned himself into an ultra marathon runner, entering long-distance trail races around the United Kingdom and Europe.
Sometimes, he told us, he would be on the startline looking around and he would think to himself of some of his fellow competitors, ‘‘they had no business entering an ultra’’.
It sounded kind of judgy. But as I listened to Finn, he explained what he meant, and I got it.
Ultra-marathons, in particular, had taught him that ‘‘you can’t judge people by their looks or their age’’.
‘‘There was one race where a lady who was 68 beat me by miles,’’ he told us. ‘‘There were people of all shapes and sizes and ages. People who would start off quite slow and you’re thinking, ‘OK, they’re going to be lucky to get there…’ And then you get to half way through and in my case you’re collapsed on the side of the trail a couple of times and they stride by.’’
And that’s the thing about running. As much as it is a physical endeavour – requiring strength and fitness and aerobic capacity – running is often about the mind.
And you can’t see into people’s minds by looking at them. You don’t know what will drive people to push through when you’ve all but given up. You don’t know what is motivating someone when you may well be questioning why you’re there.
Finn encountered this at ultra-marathons. But I’ve experienced it at ParkRuns, too, the weekly, timed five-kilometre
With my short legs, ungainly gait, and wobbly bits and pieces, I certainly don’t look fast.
runs that happen in parks all over the country (and many other countries too) every Saturday morning.
They’re a gathering of the clan, the clan of runners, people who don’t fit into any particular stereotype.
It’s like the ante-Olympics – whereas those athletes who line up for the start of the 5000-metre final will generally be all lungs and legs, ParkRun participants will conform to no standard type.
I’ve run virtually my whole life but there have been times when people have said to me, ‘‘you don’t look like a runner’’. With my short legs, ungainly gait, and wobbly bits and pieces, I get it. I certainly don’t look fast.
But I’m OK with that, because that’s another of running’s beauties. Yes, sure, if you’re built like a pristine speed machine, that’s great. But you don’t have to be.
If you’re determined, most of us can find a way to get out there and run. Just ask Erica Perry who has Miller syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes facial and limb abnormalities.
This month, she ran a half marathon in New Plymouth to prove to herself and others that ‘‘anybody can do anything if they put their mind to it’’.
See, now there’s a champion if ever I saw one.