People Pay to Do This?

The average road race is held early on a Sunday morning. A standard road race with T-shirts, awards, post-race refreshments, and so on costs $15 to $25 to enter. In other words, most people running in them have gone to bed early on a Saturday night, gotten up at least as early on a Sunday morning as on a regular workday, and then handed over the cost of a nice dinner for the opportunity to inflict pain on themselves. Sounds like they’re the idiots, huh?
They’re far from it, and I’m not just sensitive to that charge because I go to 25 to 30 races a year. At some level, these runners realize that far from being masochists, they’re indulging themselves. That’s right—indulging themselves! Racing is the proverbial icing on the running cake.
Your regular training gives you the big health and fitness benefits that are the most
important thing about running for most people, but experiencing only that part of
running can get a little tedious. You need some excitement and some variety in anything
that you do regularly, no matter how much you love it. In running, that excitement and
variety most often comes from going to a race. You don’t even have to try to run harder
than you do when you run on your own. There’s just something about lining up with
your fellow runners and experiencing the same course together that adds an element to
your running that’s impossible to find otherwise. Say you really like to cook. Which would you rather do: Always cook for just you and
your spouse, making pretty much the same types of dishes at the same time of day? Or would you rather use those daily cooking sessions as the main way to enjoy your hobby, but also throw a dinner party once in a while where you get to put it all on the line and let yourself and others see just what you’re capable of? Most people would choose the second option, and that’s why you see so many people at races. Let’s continue that dinner party analogy just a bit farther. Say you invite a few friends over for dinner. You don’t worry about how your culinary skills compare to Wolfgang Puck’s, do you? No. You do the best you can given your background and ability, and afterward you’re rewarded with the feeling of a job well done.
The same is true of nearly all of the people in any race. They know that they don’t have to look like Frank Shorter or Joan Benoit Samuelson to race. They know that races give their running a focus and are a great source of motivation for getting out the door most days.
Many beginning runners have a sense that their running would be more exciting if they went to races, but they’re afraid that they’ll finish last and be embarrassed. As Richard
Nixon would have said, let me say this about that: First, most races have at least a few hundred runners in them. Just like only one person is going to finish first, only one person is going to finish last. The odds of that being you are pretty long, believe me. More important, if it is you, so what? No one has ever been shot or even booed for finishing last in a road race. In fact, some of the loudest applause from spectators in races are for those near the back of the pack. The spectators recognize the extra effort that these runners are putting out. Adding to that applause are often many of the runners who have finished their races, and then hung around the finish area to cheer on their fellow runners. That kind of camaraderie with your fellow runners is one of the main draws that races have.