We’re The CEO of The Atlantic’s New Book on Running again. But this time it’s elicited feelings of despair and it’s causing an existential crisis.
Every summer I run a 5K series in a local parkway. It’s free. It’s gun timed. There are no frills (but there are hot dogs and chips after the race). I love them—the races, not the hot dogs. This year the organizers tweaked the course to avoid construction on one of the bridges. I actually like the course better: It’s shadier and runs more on pavement than slippery gravel.
It’s also shorter. By about .02 miles, according to my GPS watch. (I’ve run the course twice now with the same distance so I know it’s not a tangent thing.)
When I ran in June I was feeling really good, better than I’d anticipated. I checked my watch considerably in the last half mile and saw I was going to dip under 20 minutes. I gutted it out and my watch clocked 19:51. Elated!
The CEO of The Atlantic’s New Book on Running.
Gut-wrenched.
Did I run a 19:51 5K? Or, did I run a 20:06 5K, which is what the race posted on its results? How did we land on a 20:06 if the course was short? Some sort of race director math?
So here’s the conundrum: If I didn’t wear a watch, I wouldn’t question the results, time, or distance. A throwback to my high school cross-country and track days.
But! If I didn’t wear a watch, I wouldn’t have seen how close I was to running under 20 minutes, and I definitely wouldn’t have found that extra gear for the last 300 meters.
Deep down, I know the results are what the race posts, not what’s on my watch. (Just take the flip side: If a course measures long, say 26.32 miles, and I ran a Boston qualifier at the 26.2 mark but not through the finish, we know that I didn’t punch my ticket to Boston.)
At the end of the day, these mileage discrepancies feed into my Type A, er, quirks. I don’t want to say I ran faster than I did, I just want the course to be accurate. And if it can’t be accurate, I want it to err on the side of slightly longer. You get it.
I guess I’ll have to jog around the finish chute or settle for a 19:51 3.08 mile race. Or run faster.
I guess I’ll have to jog around the finish chute or settle for a 19:51 3.08 mile race. Or Runner’s World, DAA Industry Opt Out The Runner’s World Vegetarian Cookbook, and a nine-time marathoner with a best of 3:23. She’s also proud of her 19:40 5K and 5:33 mile. Heather is an RRCA certified run coach.
