How do you rank yourself in the standings of a race? Would you count your finish time among everyone else who finished? Or would you count yourself among everyone who started?Don’t most race directors flip-flop between those two options? Haven’t you seen some race results list all the “Did Not Finish”s (and even the “Did Not Start”s), and others listing only the finishers? Haven’t you also seen results that even list the distance at which each DNF was recorded? How are we supposed to consider the “finish place” of ourselves and those DNFs?
I mean, if you are the last finisher of a race, then you finished in last place, right? Ah, but what if some of the runners who started the race took a DNF? Didn’t the guy who was the last finisher actually beat all the DNF’ers in the race? Doesn’t that mean that he didn’t actually finish in last place, since he “beat” some other folks who weren’t even able (for whatever noble reason) to finish at all?
If that’s the case, then what if you have a race where a number of people (at least, more than one) log a DNF? Does that mean they all get a “tie” for last place? But what if one person dropped out after 10 miles and another didn’t drop until after 30? Shouldn’t the 30 Mile Guy be “placed” ahead of the 10 Mile Guy? What if they both dropped after 30 miles, but the first guy got to 30 miles in 5 hours and the second guy didn’t get there until 8 hours? How should those guys be “placed”?
What if both guys dropped at 30 miles, and both guys got there in 6 hours, but one of them had a broken foot and the other one didn’t?
Is it just me, or are these questions unanswerable? And is it not possible to assu
me that any race with more than one DNF in it would become a race with no identifiable “Last Place” finisher? Does that mean we’re all "winners" if we ran that race, being that everyone of us would theoretically have "beaten" someone else?Shall we not, then, offer a glorious “Thank You” to all the people who drop from a race, as they make all of us champions?
No? Yes?
Does any of this matter?
(What?)
No! Really! I’m serious!
2 comments:
I think races should list the DNFs and anyone that finished is ahead of them in the standings. I don't think DNS counts for anything (although it's kind of nice to know how many were registered and how many started). You should list DQ'd folks too--then we know (as RDs) who to watch out for in future races.
Greg,
Nice post, I think Schopenhauer would have liked it.
Not being an experienced ultra runner, I am not qualified to answer, but - when I scanned the Farmdale results last year I counted the runners who were unable to finish.
The course has to be considered part of the competition, meaning, it has the ability to KO some of the participants. A boxer who knocks his opponent out is considered the winner, even though his opponent was a DNF.
Since my injury at the end of January I have not kept up on running blogs - too depressing to see all the bloggers having fun while I'm stuck jumping rope at the gym.
Thank you very much for the comment. I had heard of the foam roller, but had forgotten about it until you mentioned it. I looked it up on the internet today and found some people use their Nalgene bottles to roll out IT band kinks.
I tried that this evening, and it seemed to bring some relief. I think I have some knotted muscles, maybe the bottle can clear things up. If not, I will be doing a lot of biking this year :)
Good luck this year with your races, looking forward to reading your upcoming reports and philosophical meanderings!
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