10 Reasons I’m Running Wrong
For every person who’s ever had success, there’s an entire community of haters trying to cut them off at the knees. Don’t act like it’s not true. The fact is, we’re all haters in our own ways. I am always eager to talk about all the flaws I find in Harry Potter when I do my annual re-read of the series. And don’t get me started on all the mean things I’ll say about movies compared to the whole zero I’ve been a part of making in any way at all.
Haters make the world go round.
But, if you’re a sensible person, you use their hate to fuel you. It’s not the dark side, it’s Mace Windu’s Vaapad style where you take their hate, amplify it, and throw it right back at them. It’s an essential skill for being a functional human in today’s world of quips, burns, and general hostility that we all learn in middle school and sarcastically use the rest of our lives.
That’s what fuels me and my running goals. Sure, sure, there are other internal things like wanting to challenge myself, feeling a sense of internal pride for accomplishing something difficult, and all that dumb stuff. Whatever. Really, it’s wanting to stick it to other people that motivates me.
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It’s healthy, I swear!
10 Reasons I’m Running Wrong
According to the conventional wisdoms of every source from professional runners to that one dude who finished less than a minute ahead of me at a race and told me my shoes were holding me back. These are all the things I’m doing wrong and all the cope I chug to ignore them and do my own thing anyways.
1. My shoes are holding me back.
I’m going to gain a lot of extra haters just by saying this, but I run in those Vibram toe shoes. Yep, I’m one of those hippies. But I’m also a kickboxer who’s used to bare feet and has big ol’ duck flippers for feet. So regular shoes make me feel claustrophobic and they’re narrow enough that they very frequently give me under-the-nail blisters. I’ve got toenails that will never look right again. So, I go with the Vibrams. Simulate bare feet, light weight, plenty of room for each individual toe if you get the right size. They’re great. Plus, with nothing but a thin slab of rubber between me and the ground I don’t feel like I’m running on sponges.
2. My legs are too short.
What am I even supposed to do about that? GATTACA myself to get taller? Leave me alone.
3. My shoes are holding me back.
Seriously, you have no idea how much crap I get for my Vibrams. People love to hate on the shoes. They look funny and if you’re not used to them, they make your feet sore. But I’m using them because I run better in them, don’t care how they look, and have been using them for over a decade and am super used to them.
4. I’m not trying to qualify for Boston.
Would it be cool? Yeah, of course it would be. But I would need to shave another forty minutes off my personal best marathon time to qualify. I’m not exactly there right now and in my thirties with a full-time job on my plate along with trying to build the skills to switch careers in my free time I don’t exactly have the time or energy to amp up the training to do that anytime soon. Seriously, do people know how much harder it is to run almost two minutes per mile faster than your current best?
5. I listen to music.
Every single race FAQ says the same thing: “We encourage runners not to use headphones and enjoy the sounds of the course!” Oh, you mean the sounds of traffic using the other half of the road you’ve blocked off or the absence of nature since every marathon happens in a city? Running for four hours is boring, man! I don’t care how much you love to run, the mental wall is just as real as the physical one. That’s why Olympians are so fast. They’re not allowed headphones so they have to hurry up and get it done so they can get back to doing something more fun. Me, I like running in time to pop-punk and you can either let me enjoy that or I can do something other than running.
6. I prefer road running.
I don’t dislike trail running. It’s a nice change of pace. But I’m slower on trails and I have to drive places to find trails to run on. I have roads right outside my front door. Plus, on a flat road I can be reasonably sure that I’m not gonna twist an ankle or something. Trail running always makes me feel like I’m about to trip and chew gravel. And don’t act like that doesn’t happen because the woman who had done a dozen trail races and finished a half marathon ahead of me at my most recent trail race bit it three times in front of me. She was tough as nails and kept going, but you can miss me with all that.
7. I get as close to naked as I can.
There was a time in my life that I was overweight and very self-conscious about it. I hated myself. Nowadays I’m 60 lbs. lighter on average and two shirt sizes down from where I used to be. I have to look hard for pants because my waist measurement is less than my inseam without being seven feet tall, which is a shockingly rare pair of jeans to find at Khol’s. All that to say, I feel pretty good about myself nowadays and I love pulling jersey and wearing shorts so small that half a cheek hangs out as I go. Body positivity and free choice on clothing is allowed for all genders. But I see the way the old, conservative people look at me. That little shake of the head that’s like, “kids these days have no decorum!” Yeah? Well I also have no nipple chafe when I do that so as long as we aren’t full evangelical theocracy and I’m not being arrested for it, I’m gonna show some skin.
8. My shoes are holding me back.
I even caved and bought a pair of Altras for the sake of strengthening my feet and ankles by giving them a very different gait for the occasional training run. But I like running in my Vibrams! So sue me for just doing a hobby the way that I like!
9. I’m running too far.
I come from a family that was never athletic. My dad played golf in college and my sister sometimes parks further away from the door to get her steps in. Nobody gets why I run marathons and they even expressed concern that it would be unhealthy for me to be as physically healthy as I am. I never got a particularly clear explanation for that one. But if there’s anything that would make me consider running an ultra-marathon one day it’s to prove that there isn’t really such a thing as too healthy and fit. Plus, they’ll be happy I can run like that when we’re on a road trip and 26 miles from the nearest town with no cell service and have perishable food that needs to be put in a cooler within the next four hours or else the picknick is ruined. They’ll all see!
10. I don’t have a professionally designed training program.
This one might be a little legitimate in some ways. There are very good trainers and programs out there that can design a perfect program for me to maximize my gains and adjust to my needs based on rest, benchmarks, and goals. But they’re all expensive and my lottery tickets haven’t hit the multi-million-dollar jackpot yet. So, I’m going to keep cobbling together programs based on the free programs and articles I can find. All for as cheap as free! Hey, it’s working okay so far. I’ve shaved off roughly 30 minutes from my first ever marathon time and continue to improve with each run. Luckily for me, there’s some truth behind the fact that even just doing something at all is enough to improve, even if you’re not maximizing efficiency from every single training session.
So, for all these reasons I suck at running, I continue to be remarkably better than most of the people out there because at least I’m doing it! That’s more than any of the couch potato, arm-chair coaches can say about it all! When I stop finishing in the top 10% of the finishers of the races I enter I’ll start listening to all the haters out there. Until then…
Haters gonna hate.
