Recently I was searching for something on the web and stumbled across a post by Nate Jenkins titled "
5253 miles to nowhere". Now I don't know Nate personally and have never met him. I do know he's a local guy (Lowell) and what I'd call an very accomplished runner. I think he describes himself as a professional road racer. Anyways, the post was both interesting and a little sad. Here's a guy who ran over 5,000 miles in 2008, averaged 100 miles a week, and appeared disappointed in nearly every race he ran. He ranked his performance on each race from worst (what he called pathetic) to best. In fact, pathetic was used 5 times, and ****ty was used 5 times to describe his results.
A few of his pathetic (worst) and ****ty results:
- 31:24 10k
- 1:07 half marathon
- 2:25 marathon
At first glance, not exactly results to be disappointed with....unless you're a professional runner I guess. My good races would probably be suicidal for Nate but for me they're results I'm proud of.
I love to run (in case you didn't know) but I don't ever want to get to the point in my life that running causes so much disappointment. If that's the life of a professional runner then count me out (ok, I wasn't really 'in'). I'm perfectly happy with my middle of the pack, weekend warrior status. When all else fails, lower the bar :-)
Now get out there and enjoy yourself!
