Vote! It's, like, Patriotic!

We're up to 21 votes on the Poll! Have you seen it? It's a little further down the sidebar on ye old blog here. 21! Woohoo! I know more votes are coming, too, because there's a few more of you out there that check in from time to time who've never run a race as long as a 5K. I happen to know that the solitary "Less Than 5K" vote came from my girlfriend (just trust me, I know), so there should, at least, be more of those votes coming, right?

So far, the 50K voters are totally in the lead. I'm pleased that there are also a couple of votes for over 100 miles. Back in December I had to bump my own vote up from 50 Miles to 100K, after I finished my first at the Lookout Mountain 100K, in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Which reminds me: I'm curious to know what event you were at when you ran your longest race (or the first event where you ran the distance). So if you're inclined, post a comment below and tell me the race and where it was (even if it was just the 100 meter dash in your 9th grade P.E. class).

Do tell, do tell!

This'll Make Alex Trebek Proud

Okay: serious question. Really, I’m serious about this. I want to know. Because it’s a question of etiquette and procedure - and perhaps even metaphysics - that could be on a par with any other threat to the very fabric of the time/space continuum. I need to poll the running world at large (well, at least the four of your that occasionally read this blog). This post is partly inspired by today's post by my blog/ultra buddy, Chris, but it’s a topic that’s been floating around my brain for some time and continues to gurgle up to the surface. So…

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 assume 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!

Bib Madness

Well, I had so much Race Reporting to do in the last few weeks that I had to hold onto a few random thoughts until I had time to get back around to them. Here's one of them...
------------------------------------------------
A couple of days after the Chicago Marathon, I was behind my apartment building to throw my trash in the dumpster. When I flipped up the lid, the first thing I saw was someone else's marathon race bib, crumpled up and discarded on top of the refuse pile. I actually froze in mid-toss. Really? Someone threw away their race bib?

I was slightly aghast. I always keep my bibs. And they're easy, unique mementos to keep. T-shirts? They clog your closet. Except for maybe 2 or 3, you rarely wear them. Eventually you have to box up the extraneous ones, store them, and then finally give them away. The crap in the goodie bags they give you? 99% of it is just that: Crap. It goes in the trash as soon as you get home. Finisher certificates? Fine, if the race even sends you one, but they don't mean much more to me than the attendance awards they used to hand out in primary school.

The medals and the belt buckles you get at the finish lines? I admit those are nice. Those you have to keep. But those aren't always part of the deal. Not every finish line includes the hardware.

Bibs, though, are special. Bibs are the little proof that you stepped up, went out, and publicly tested yourself. That you set a goal, trained for it, then went out to make it real. Bibs are what separate the "runners" from the people who just jog for general exercise. The Bib is what allows me to pretend that I really am an athlete, even if I'm never going to really win anything except the race against myself.

When Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson and Joan Benoit and Usain Bolt and Jackie Joyner-Kersey and Deena Kastor race, they are all given - and required to wear - bib numbers. Does anyone actually think that if one of these people won their races that the races officials would not be able to identify who they were without having an entry number on their uniform as identification? Of course not! So what's the bib for? It's a label that tells every possible onlooker that the wearer is an Athlete, and they are preparing to test their own limits, because that's what athletes do.

With the advent of chip timing in large races, bibs don't even serve any functional purpose for the "citizen runner" anymore. It used to be that each bib also had a small pull tab on it and when you crossed the line and walked through the finisher shoot, these tabs would be removed and recorded by race officials, or they would otherwise record your number. Now, the chips do all of that electronically. The only real reason to wear a bib in a race like that anymore is to help the event photographers identify your photo so they can offer you a chance to spend $35 on an 8x10 of yourself.

But we still wear them. Because they are still symbolic of something that's important. And I still keep every single one.

That poor bib in the dumpster hadn't just been thrown away. It had been crumpled up and discarded on it's own, as if the wearer had unpinned it in some kind of fit and ditched it as they'd shuffled by. I couldn't suppress my curiosity, so I memorized the number and used it to look up the owner's results online. It was a woman who had taken more than 6 hours to finish. So, who knows, maybe there was a level of disappointment involved. Or maybe this marathon really was a once in lifetime event for her and now that it was over, she was done with it. I know, too, that not everyone has the archival tendencies that I have.

But I still couldn't help feeling that someone had foolishly discarded a singular keepsake. Am I crazy?

Running Shoe Fetish?

Well, “fetish” may be too strong a word, but I do seem to have accumulated a lot of running shoes over the years. I'm not just talking about buying a pair, wearing them out, buying a new pair to replace them and then failing to throw out the old ones. (Though, I tend to do that, too.) No, I’m talking about all the pairs I've got that I could take outside right now to run in. And I just went to double check, and even I’m surprised. I’ve got – ready? – Seven pairs.

I didn’t realize this situation had developed until a few months ago when my girlfriend started ribbing me in front of my friends about the shoe store in my closet. My good-natured defense at the time was that most of them were running shoes, but then later I wondered to myself if that was really a sane argument. I mean, isn’t that a little like someone opening your refrigerator and noting, “My, you sure do keep a lot to drink in here," and replying, “Yeah, but most of it is vodka and gin.”

The tally of those seven pairs? I’ve got my street running shoes for the summer (NB767), and I’ve got a nearly identical pair in an “all-weather” version meant for winter running (NB768AW). The summer pair is very breathable and let lots of air through, and the winter pair are the reverse. They make a big difference in the sub-freezing Chicago winter, so they’re kind of a necessity.

I’ve got a pair of fly-weight trail shoes that I love so much I bought a 2nd, identical set that are just a ½ size larger (NB790s). The larger ones give my feet a little more wiggle room.

I’ve also got a more heavy duty pair of trail shoes which weigh a little more, but offer much better protection on rocky surfaces (NB800). I haven’t had a chance to use them in a race yet, but they feel good on the local dirt trails.

I’ve got a 4th pair of trail shoes, from a totally different brand, which is supposed to function as a cross between my other pairs: light-weight but trail rugged (Inov-8 Flyroc 310). I was really excited about these when I bought them, but don’t wear them so much anymore, because I’ve learned that they cut oddly into the back of my right heel (and only the right - something to do with the shape of my foot), which causes a lot of friction and blisters on long runs.

And finally, early this spring, I picked up a pair of cross-county racing spikes (NB RX505CR). They’re really meant for a max of 7 or 8-mile races, but I wore them all the way through my 50-miler this past April and they did great on that dirty, muddy course.

All this doesn’t include the older pairs of running shoes that I don’t run in anymore, but keep around as “work” shoes, or the fresh pair of NB767s that I bought cheap and put away for future use. (And we'll not get into all my "regular people" shoes.)

That is my one defense for all the running shoes I have: Every single pair, except for the Inov-8s, I bought at a really great discount. And they all do serve different functions for me. Really!

But I know I may have a legit problem, because in spite of my personal supply, I still want to go into every shoe store and look around, “Just to see what they’ve got.”

Sarah Jessica Parker would be proud of me, but I’m not sure that’s good. But, now, if Kara Goucher approves, well, that’d be cool.

So, come on, tell me how many pairs of running shoes you own.