Small, local races

After running the Canada Day 5K last week, I got to thinking about how I don’t run the small, local races very often.  In fact, I looked up the last time I ran one, and was quite shocked to see that it was in 2007.

So then I got to thinking about why that is.  It’s not because I don’t enjoy them – in fact, they’re great fun!  It’s nice to not have to go far and to be familiar with the area. It’s also nice not to have to go ridiculously early to stand in line forever for kit pick up.  I don’t have to bring my own cheering squad because I will invariably run into someone I know.

I figure I haven’t really been avoiding the small, local races, but rather, I’ve been attracted to the larger, less local races.  But why is that?  Well, speed is an obvious answer.  In a small race, I place much worse.  Take Ottawa for example:  when I ran the 5K at the end of May, I ran a full 4 minutes slower than I ran last week, but still placed under halfway in the field; last week, my personal best put me much farther back.  So the moral of the story is: the bigger the bell curve, the closer I am to average (for the record, I have never claimed to be speedy, and have, in fact, had a lot of fun joking about the time I came in 4th-last in a race, just ahead of 3 girls who were only there to pass their gym class – one was wearing flip flops, and the other two stopped for a smoke at the turn-around).

Having said that, there’s that whole part about how I will invariably run into someone I know, either in the race or in the crowd.  Store owners, coworkers, my Boot Camp buddy, some other lady from Boot Camp that I don’t know.  The lady I see out walking every morning with her coffee cup (who placed third in her age category, thank you very much) and that guy who walks with his beautiful and well-behaved greyhound.  While I make no bones about the fact that I am slow, I guess I don’t specifically have the urge to prove it to all of those people on home turf.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned over time, it’s that no one cares who came in last, except that person.  In fact, at the small, local races, the crowd gets bigger for the end of the pack as all the people who are already finished are waiting for the pizza to arrive!