Ran across this post from Barefoot Runner’s blog. It’s the best read I have had in a long time. Can’t wait to go try it out on the road!
It’s a conundrum. On the one hand, you want to run faster. Maybe you want to contend for a top three in your age group. Maybe you want to beat half the field. Maybe you don’t want to be last. Maybe you want to win. Maybe you want to get to the end-of-race food offerings before all the speedies gobble it up. Also, speed is a concrete and indisputable means of measuring your leveling-up progress, and what is life if not a video game? On the other hand, there’s the fear that by aspiring to compete with the clock you’ll lose some of the joy of running due to the fear and reality of failure. If you run just for the sake of running, the numbers on the clock at the end of a race have no power over you.
Read the full article here. Read it, and weep.