"I used it just as a workout"

Excuse making is always annoying.

Think how rare it is for a runner to say something along the lines of "I've done all I can do to get ready for this race. The weather's good and I'm going to give my best effort. Whatever time I run today will be a true indication of what kind of shape I'm in, and how hard I pushed myself."

Instead what your mostly hear is "I'm training through this race" or "I'm sick/hurt so I won't do very well today" or "No pressure on me, my goal race is next fall."

It always sounds like "Please please please don't judge me." When I do hear someone say thy are going to give it a genuine effort, without excuses, I admire their courage.

That is nonsense...even Shorter admits in his biography that a lot of his early season races were just that harder efforts to see where he was at. Viren did the same thing. It is called peaking for a reason you know.

I usually say this to people but I usually skip the part about not paying and not recieving a number.

I can understand elite runners testing themselves out at various stages of their training cycle. I think the OP is referring to 'run-of-the-mill' athletes who come out with these excuses for their poor performances.

I ran a 5k yesterday. It turned out to be a big PB, but I didn't expect it to be because, well, it was my first race in a while and I was in the middle of heavy training. I didn't feel great warming up and I did sandbag it a bit, but that was joking whining to my friends.

I went hard from the gun, however. Sometimes you can be surprised by your performance. I really didn't have any other excuse though, and I was kicking myself for not being fresh for this flat race on a cool day.

I ran in the 17s. There was a sub-2:15 marathoner there who did basically jog it in around 15:30. That's about 3 miles at MP for him. Should I go and let him know that he's incurred LetsRun's wrath?

The whiners are always out there in every sport. I used to be one. I think it goes away with experience. There was a while where every race was too hot, too cold, too rainy, too windy, etc. Weather doesn't make that big of a difference.

truth will out wrote:

Most of the guys who claim "tempo" say that only when they run like crap.

"tempo, injured, etc." are only valid if you bring it up before the race. funny how most of these guys don't say a peep beforehand.

OK, I'm running in a 5K on Labor Day. I'm coming back from an injury, so I am officially running it as a tempo. It's a well-run race and a good charity, so that's why I'm running it, but I'm in no shape to race it.

Am I official now?

The Rule of Thumb:if someone beats you and they say it was just a workout,then it was just a workout.You beat them and they say it was just a workout,then they are making excuses.

i do some of my tempo runs in races

why - a different place, keeps the pace honest, gives me splits, fun to see people, and why not, it is $30, no big deal

i don't think i have ever told anyone but I think people get the idea... if i run a minute or two slow in a 10k then i have not too long ago then people can choose to think what they like

either they think i have gotten that slow - fine

or i'm not going all out - i don't think it is disrespectful to anyone

anEconomist wrote: ...why not, it is $30, no big deal

That part I don't get. Why throw away 30 bucks for the privilege of running a tempo on a possibly (likely?) inaccurate course when you can find a track somewhere, MAYBE pay a $5-8 day use fee (or hop the fence for free - not that I'm condoning that sort of thing, hehehehe...), and run it on an accurately measured surface. The one time I've done this, it cost me 6 bucks to sign up for the twilight meet, and all 6 bucks went straight toward the local youth track club.

Now if you've been invited to run it and it's free, or you bandit the thing, I suppose that's different. But paying 30 bucks to run your workout? I can't see it.

'like i said, it is fun seeing people, doing a run at a different place (i find road runs more interesting than running around a track - i do that ENOUGH)and honestly, even if I did this every other weekend (which is way more frequent than i actually would), that would be what $750 a year or somethingi'm not going to sweat it, i feel like running is by far the cheapest sport out there (especially since i wear shoes till they are in shreds) so i'm willing to take those libertiesi always think about what if i were in biking - damn everything would be more expensive - clothes, bike, gear, etc.

Pete wrote:

anEconomist wrote: ...why not, it is $30, no big deal

That part I don't get. Why throw away 30 bucks for the privilege of running a tempo on a possibly (likely?) inaccurate course when you can find a track somewhere, MAYBE pay a $5-8 day use fee (or hop the fence for free - not that I'm condoning that sort of thing, hehehehe...), and run it on an accurately measured surface. The one time I've done this, it cost me 6 bucks to sign up for the twilight meet, and all 6 bucks went straight toward the local youth track club.

Now if you've been invited to run it and it's free, or you bandit the thing, I suppose that's different. But paying 30 bucks to run your workout? I can't see it.

There's obviously nothing wrong with running races as tempo efforts, or just to socialize with friends.

What most folks object to is the runners who do a race for those reasons, but feel compelled to LOUDLY announce to everyone within earshot that they did not do the race as a serious effort.

Just keep it to yourself, and let the runners who did show up to do their best have their day. They don't need or want to to hear your "I trained through this one" explanations.

Sojouner, or Sojourner? If you are going to use a name like that at least get the spelling down.

Brucey wrote:Just keep it to yourself, and let the runners who did show up to do their best have their day. They don't need or want to to hear your "I trained through this one" explanations.

"Let the runners who did show up to do their best have their day" - absolutely. But I do occasionally use road races as tempo runs (or even, rarely, as easy runs), and there are all kinds of legit reasons why I might not keep it to myself. Friends you'd normally be running with might want to know beforehand that you won't be mixing it up with them this time; others might notice your time after the fact, and ask "what happened?" (And no, I don't lie: if my time was off because I bombed, I'll freely admit it. If my time was off because I was running it as a tempo, I'll say so.)

You pansies all have your panties in a knot because you have been outed as "that guy" who ALWAYS uses the "workout/tempo" line after the race is over whenever your buddies hand you your ass. This way, in your own sick little minds, your buddy hasn't really beaten you, and you didn't really run like crap. This is a classic example of "denial".

I purposely run very few races each year in order to get more maximal efforts/PRs. Plus, it's not ideal to race a lot if you're training for the marathon.

My feeling is if you race too much, it gets easy to get in the habit of treating races as "training runs", and you forget how to 'race' and get the most out of yourself.

Pete wrote:

anEconomist wrote: ...why not, it is $30, no big deal

That part I don't get. Why throw away 30 bucks for the privilege of running a tempo on a possibly (likely?) inaccurate course when you can find a track somewhere, MAYBE pay a $5-8 day use fee (or hop the fence for free - not that I'm condoning that sort of thing,...

It hurts to throw money away like that, but most of us have thrown a lot more away on races we couldn't show up for.

If you enter, let us say, 30-40 races a year, I can't conceive of how you can treat each one as a serious competition. You're going to triage them mentally: these are the big ones, the keys--these are important--these are tuneups and workouts.

If you can put yourself in a race-state of mind when you're doing a workout, then that's great. But many people can't. They need a real race to test themselves.

Heck, I ran some of my high school league XC meets as fartleks! Literally, I would run two minutes "on", one minute "off" the entire way. If you're fast enough to win (or otherwise achieve your desired result) without going balls out and you choose to do so for whatever reason, what's wrong with it? I agree that you shouldn't rub it in the face of your opposition, but everyone's got their own training style, and races don't always fall exactly when you want them to. Some of these road racers could have entered races in advance and then as the race drew close, they realized that they were not totally healthy / a bit overtrained / "off" in their workout cycle, etc.

T-shirts

Experience (decorations, crowd, post race food, etc.)

Cool course

Going with friends

Charity

hounddogharrier wrote:

The Rule of Thumb:if someone beats you and they say it was just a workout,then it was just a workout.You beat them and they say it was just a workout,then they are making excuses.

Not necessarily. If I run a workout in a race and get beaten by Paul Tergat, that makes my workout not a workout? Is there a time gap that makes it a workout versus a race where you got beaten?

If an athlete is racing he will adjust his pace to win if competition is near. A workout would be where the athlete runs a fixed effort or pace regardless of traffic. Now, if the workout runner changes their mind 95% of the way through the race and decides to compete the last 5%, is it still a workout or a race? It doesn't so much depend on the result as the intention of the runner. The key, at least in my mind, is the competition factor. Are you or are you not competing against other athletes? If you are, it's a race; if you're not, it's a workout.