Lark Runners

When I meet people and they find out that I’m a runner, almost invariably they have a story about their sibling / friend / parent / relative / friend of friend or whoever who ran some race as a lark without training and in clown shoes and did incredibly well considering that they didn’t work at it. They tell this story with enthusiasm, focussing on what great athletes their sibling / friend / parent / relative / friend of friend must be in order to run and beat others who have trained so hard. The story sucks – and I always find my plastic smile faltering as they try to get me to validate what a wonderful accomplishment that lark of a run was. Sometimes they include an ode to how fast their sibling / friend / parent / relative / friend of friend would be if they ever deigned to try.

Sometimes I wish I weren’t so polite.

Yes, sure, it’s nice that someone ran a half or a full without the usual investment of training – and yes, it must take a certain level of athleticism to do that – but to me, it’s singularly unimpressive. To me, an athlete is someone who commits to what she's doing, someone who sets challenging goals and then works like stink to achieve them – no matter how fast or slow. Athletes take risks. Someone who tells everyone they haven’t trained a bit and are lacing up their shoes for a race risks virtually nothing. If they don’t finish – well, it’s because they didn’t train. If they finish – whooee what an accomplishment… and look at all those suckers who were slower than I was. And those who finished faster? Well, those losers spend so much time training, of course they were faster. If I trained…

It’s a whole dump truck loaded with garbage.

I know the people telling me these heroic stories are probably just trying to relate; they probably don’t mean to be insulting – but celebrating a half-assed performance is just not something I can stomach. Perhaps the half-assed runner does have potential, but potential don’t mean diddly. One of the beauties of running is working hard to discover just what your potential really is – simply talking about potential and feeling good about it without actually doing it is just… sad. Why is this something to celebrate with a heroic tale?

I like running stories where somebody’s sibling / friend / parent / relative / friend of friend worked for years to qualify for Boston and finally did – like my physiotherapist – not where someone qualified on a lark. Or like my sister-in-law’s sister who trained hard after having a baby with the goal of running a sub-1:40 half – and she did it. Or like a friend here in Halifax who trained hard but missed his marathon goal this weekend after hitting the wall. In these stories there is reward, but there is also risk. All of them run at different paces, but they are all athletes – all runners.

I think the test of a good running tale is what the tale implies about other runners. In the tale of the lark run, the implication is that other runners are chumps for taking running seriously. As a result, the story becomes one of those ego stuffers that puffs one person up by deflating others. But a good running tale, while it usually focuses on only one runner, takes the whole process of setting goals and working to achieve them seriously. This implies that all those others in the race ahead or behind are also engaged in a meaningful pursuit. The story is told with understanding and sympathy. Runners passed in the final kilometres are not perceived as chumps; rather, they’re perceived with a sympathetic “I’ve been there” grimace. A good running tale communicates a sense of camaraderie, a sense of community surrounding individual pursuits – from other runners to the volunteers who make the racing stories possible. A lark runner never even notices the volunteers.

I imagine there will be no end to the triumphant telling of lark runner heroics, and I will probably continue to bite my tongue and smile through each exuberantly told story, but I think I’m going to resolve not to celebrate the “accomplishment” with the person telling the tale – I’ll change the subject instead.

Secretly, though, I hope all those lark runners drop the lark and become runners. I hope they come to realize that running is much more than finishing a race. And if running is not for them, no problem – I just hope they gain more respect for the whole pursuit than their chroniclers seem to have.