Don’t talk about your finishing time

No one cares about your time. You can tell people you PB’d or that you had a great finish, but the only person obsessing over your finishing time is you. Your family will be proud of you just for finishing, your non-running friends have no context for it anyway and your running friends will either resent you for your speed or pity you for being so slow, and you don’t want either of those (especially the pity – trust me).

Brad Woods is a father, storyteller and educator who runs in and around Guelph, Ont.