College athlete in Fun Runs

I do the same thing. I don't think the people who come in second want the first place medal or whatever...most of mine don't even have that. I think that they like seeing people like us come, even though we can winning by minutes in a relatively controlled effort, it would kind of like we came in second to bekele, we wouldnt mind, we would just want to see him run. Not to compare us to Bekele but we are about equal distant between bekele and your local 17 minute 5k guy.

There is such thing as being gratious in victory. By asking the race organizers to pass the medal that you earned to someone below you you disrespect the effort your competitors have shown. Accept the medal for your place graciously-and if you don't want it find some little kid around the race and give them your medal. Little kids love that kind of stuff.

I was in this same type of situation and I would win 5ks by 30-60s, and I once won a 10 miler by a mile, literally. I would hang around afterward, eat the cheap bagels and drink the sports drinks and chat it up with the other local runners, but never let on that it was less that full effort. It was always, "yeah, I had a pretty good one today", but usually I directed the conversation at them.. what was your time, was that your best, I can't believe this weather.

I used to do my cool downs with some slower guys and add on afterward. I became well respected and not regarded as cocky or standoffish. I never wanted to be the guy who showed up at local races only to have people look at me like, "Great, that asshole again." Instead, I got to meet a lot of nice people who had the same passion as I did, just at a slightly slower speed.

It just takes realizing that in the grand scheme of things, we all suck at running in comparison to the best of the best, so let's enjoy our passion for the sport instead.

Before I knew it, a rep from Avia shoes had offered me some free gear/shoes as a mini sponsorship. I didn't pay for shoes for a couple years. Not bad for a 15:45-16:00 guy.

Hey, what's the point of being young and in great shape if you can't cherry pick road races and be the big winner? I won a 4 mile race once in 19:48 when the 2nd place guy was 22:50. I didn't mind it at all, cause that guy was a jackass who thought he was 'all that' and was constantly winning alot of races when we college guys were away at school, from my hometown.

yeah, don't do that, it undermines the efforts of the person who finished second. i imagine if i did a road race and was trying my hardest then the girl who won said "would you like the medal because i was doing it as a tempo" i wouldn't want it. if you win, you win.

There's an art to winning graciously, and it looks as if you have it.

I agree that the OP shouldn't give his medal to the second place person. Enjoy it, and/or as suggested maybe give it to a kid later. When my nieces and nephews were a lot younger, I would sometimes share my age group medals with them--especially when they were dealing with something difficult in their lives.

That second-place person might see you as someone who motivates them to train harder and maybe stay with you in the future. That's how I see my faster competitors. They don't need to give me anything that they haven't already given to me by pushing me to work harder and train better. Or if they simply have more talent and I haven't a snowball's chance of beating them, good for them! It's a race. Why shouldn't they run fast and enjoy the results of their efforts? I run as much to aim for the best I can give on a specific day as I do to compete with another person (although I do enjoy that if it's someone close to me in ability).

And really, we all live with the fact there will always be people who do better at something than we do--and those who don't do as well. Same with racing. No worries.

njl2 wrote:

I do the same thing. I don't think the people who come in second want the first place medal or whatever...most of mine don't even have that. I think that they like seeing people like us come, even though we can winning by minutes in a relatively controlled effort, it would kind of like we came in second to bekele, we wouldnt mind, we would just want to see him run. Not to compare us to Bekele but we are about equal distant between bekele and your local 17 minute 5k guy.

That's a very good point. A lot of mediocre college guys don't really realize how much a recreational/citizen runner looks up to them. Probably just as much as college guys look up to pro runners.

Should Alan Webb give back his gold metal this year just because he doesn't need to try very hard to get it?

its ok to acceptt them, people love seeing high caliber local talent. Give them hope to work harder. thats what i think.

I remember back in Dec of '05, it was a week after i competed in the NAIA Nat's in CC and drove to dallas to visit my sister. An older friend called me early to fun a fun run 5k with him and i said sure. Im usually very quite and can get along with anyone..But there was this large group of HS runners being very loud and annoying, thought they were the greatest thing on earth. And that really ticked me off. Anyways i took off a little behind them and as i was passing them up with a surge one of the little pricks said " dont follow him, he doesnt know what he's doing.." and another "he'll burn out" ...Needless to say, i got pissed and finished about 2 minutes ahead of them..

Gosh that was fun !

Cool. Thanks for the advice. Especially the ones that made sense. I just wanted to be doing the right thing.

It would have been quite rude of me to give my medal to the second place man. I'm glad I did not say anything in front of him.

Of course. Alan shouldn't give back his medal. But he won it against athletes in his league. My point is what if he dropped down a couple levels into a mediocre race where the second place time was 4:15 or so. Does it make sense for him to do that?

I just want to show fun runners my respect because I am in their territory. If they ran unattached in one of my college races, I would certainly do all that I could to crush them.

Thanks

but never let on that it was less that full effort. It was always, "yeah, I had a pretty good one today",

this is the key. no one wants to get beat by a minute and then have the dude say, "I wasn't trying"

If you're a nice person, everyone will be happy to have you at the fun run.

something that the people at these races will remember.

Usually when I win the typical low key fun runs I reenact something I've seen the pros do when they win. One race I let out an Alan Webb emotional filled yell:

http://i.usatoday.net/sports/_photos/2007/07/22/webbx-large.jpg

After another race I had someone spray down my shoes with a fire extinguisher. It looked a little like this:

http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/50887823.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF1939847EC77F5F8D1CE50AC117C802ED0DEA40A659CEC4C8CB6

And at the last race I won I was talking to people after I finished and they asked me how I felt, I got excited talking about it and yelled at the top of my lungs, "Anything is possible!" Apparently KG was there and it inspired him to win the NBA finals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyjOy7fRzs0

While in college, I entered a local 10K and won the thing by 9 minutes. It was probably the most awkward I ever felt in my life. People were pretty excited that I won, but there was a lot of shuffling of feets and straining of eyes as they looked down the road for the next finisher as the minutes ticked off the clock.

One of the more interesting events occurred at a small town near my parents' house. They held two races every year, a 5K and a 5-mile. This one guy had won every race that the town had ever held. I showed up at the 5K race and proceeded to beat the guy handily. As I neared the finish line, the guy's wife threw a watermelon rind and hit me in the back.

Despite the second incident, I've always been real polite to the organizers and other runners. When you win by that much, you'll get asked a lot of training questions. I was running 100-mile weeks then, but I would deflect the questions to how many miles they were running and give them suggestions based on their abilities.

I'm in a slightly odd situation of it having both beein in hte situation and having it happen to me...

I'm the usual not-horrendous-but-not-all-that-good-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things-guy running 15:50/33:16 at 18 (now 20 and still running the same after horrendous injury problems). Having improved substantially suddenyl started just winning local races with a problem. I usually took the prize as I wasn't that much better that I was just tempoing it and it's nice to collect the medal when you've sucked for a few years. That said I think if I'd progressed much further and ended up where I was almost jogging for the wins then I'd have considered just asking htem to pass the medals on.

On the other hand it happened to me once when I was "racing" James Thie. James is a regular on these boards as jackass and a very good miler (usually runs in the Armory each year and a mid 3:50s guy/3:36-8 1500). He'd been asked by the event to come and run and just cruised round for the most part with a training partner of his with the training partner finally getting him over the final km. I managed to come third about 3 minutes down the road! At the medals ceremony he gave up his prize (he was also handing htem out!) and we all moved up one place and it seemed a classy move- though the prize was just a t-shirt froma different firmt hat sponsored him! Similiarly in hte same race Jo Pavey was running (thank god not flat out or she'd have beaten me!) and she also gave up her prize.

Bottom-line: No one will think you're a jerk for taking the prize and similarly people will probably appreciate it if you do give it up.

What I quite often do in scenarios like that when I know I've got about a minute or so on the enxt athlete is run with htem and slightly ahead ad just on their limit so pushing them hard the whole way round (like a pacemaker) and then kick over the finaly 2-400. It makes me work on the part of my race that is weakest- the kick. Helps them out and still gives me a good work-out. Plus it means they do have a chance!