It isn’t a question of winning or losing—in life or in running.
The question is: Are you a competer or a completer?
After I signed up for my first half marathon in 2008, the next thing I did was go to the library and get some running books.
If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.
The beginner’s marathon training books had some pearls of wisdom in goal-setting that clearly apply to more than just running.
They instructed that once you’ve got a training schedule in place for running and other activities, like yoga and cycling as cross-training, then determine your goal: Are you going to be a competer or a completer?
A competer is someone who trains for a certain pace or overall time and then seeks to beat. Perhaps seeking a personal record. This is what we think of as “winning.”
A completer is someone who seeks to reach the finish line through running, walking, hell or high water.
Then, the most important step: setting your race goal and being satisfied with it. This is harder than it sounds.
Nine months before the race, I received an email from my friend Robyn from Boston about running the Seattle half-marathon once she had moved to town, along with her friend, E.B.
They had already run several marathons, triathalons and Ironmans.
I had not.
It turns out that training was a series of firsts:
- every time I ran a mile farther,
- training in the pouring rain,
- many injuries and
- committing to one of my most demanding goals yet.
Knowing What’s Good Enough
There are two kinds of decision-makers according to an article I read in Real Simple magazine in 2008: satisfiers and maximizers.
Satisfiers just want to make a decision and move on.
Maximizers just want to make the absolute best decision possible. This feels like winning.
Unsurprisingly, the article concluded that generally “satisfiers” are happier people through their ease of decision making.
Whereas the “maximizers” may have the occasional euphoric decision-making successes, they are generally stressed out all the time due to an acute case of perfection.
So, what does making a choice versus making the best-choice-ever-invented have to do with running?
The marathon training books say that once you decide to be a competer or a completer you have to stick to what that means.
Train with that focus in mind. And don’t change your tune once you’ve crossed the finish line.
It was my first half-marathon. There was no baseline. It would have been easy to compete with myself, set a speed target, train for it and try to crush it.
I wondered: Why was I doing this in the first place?
To see if I could do it.
I don’t have a runner’s body. I had never run that far before. The obvious decision was to simply finish the race—to be a completer.
And yet, I kept considering options until I decided that the best decision possible was to be a completer.
What I’ve learned since then is that it’s actually really difficult to be a “completer” when you have a “maximizer” mindset.
It takes truly being satisfied with making the decision, any decision, and moving on with it, in order to complete things—come what may.
Otherwise, you’re still competing with yourself. And unless you’ve made that perfect decision and achieved the perfect outcome, you’re not actually satisfied.
Not that competing is bad. It can be very motivating. It’s just not necessary for winning.
My official race results for my first half-marathon were 2 hours and 23 minutes, putting me near the middle of my division, 472 of 840 (that would be the slow “completer” division) and overall, I came in 2,364th place.
I was thrilled to just make it to the finish line—this was winning—though noted some disappointment that I was 10 minutes slower than expected.
I was not fully satisfied even though speed had not been the goal.
The goal was to finish what I had started nine months before.
It’s the Journey, Not the Destination
I could have practically had a baby in the length of time I trained for the Seattle half-marathon I ran in November, 2008.
While I have no idea what labor is like, I imagine some of the pain I experienced during the run is somewhat akin to beginning contractions.
In fact, the whole eight-month process was pretty painful.
The day before the race I met a friend for tea at Victrola, a hip Seattle coffee shop in the Capital Hill neighborhood where my brother lived at the time.
While waiting for my friend to arrive I couldn’t help eavesdropping on the surrounding tables.
One woman said to another as she packed up her stuff, “Have a fun time with the race tomorrow!”
The other woman responded, “Yeah, right! It won’t be fun!”
So, if it sucks so much, why run a half-marathon?
It’s all about the journey.
You get to see what you’re made of.
Training for eight months was a bit unnecessary and very conservative.
The proactivity was worth it.
I was injured twice over the eight months, once throwing out my back and then again during the 220-mile Hood-to-Coast relay race, which stalled training for weeks. I was sick several weeks before the race.
And then I busted my tailbone during a soccer game the week before the race, which threatened having to call the whole thing off.
Luckily, after a few days of heavy ibuprofen intake and butt icing I was able to go for a short run without much pain, but a lot of soreness.
Perhaps it was just a preview for race day.
After a delicious carbo-loading dinner of chicken and pasta, bread and beer with my friends the night before the race, I set out my running gear and breakfast like it was the first day of school.
As tired as I was from the three-hour drive up to Seattle that day, when I hit the futon, I could not get to sleep for the life of me, just as the beginner’s running book had predicted.
It was like Christmas Eve, but more nerves than excitement.
In fact, I don’t think I had ever been that nervous in my life.
It felt like some kind of internal mixture of a flock of butterflies, a gerbil on a work-out wheel and a case of carbonated soda.
Here Goes Something
We slept in until 5:30 a.m. and then hustled to dress, eat and get a ride downtown just in time for the early start time.
It was a damp Pacific Northwest morning around 40 degrees.
But that didn’t bother the mobs of thousands of completers and competers flocking the start line.
Apparently that year had unprecedented, record-setting registration.
My stomach was in knots. There was no way we were going to make it to the bathrooms, we couldn’t even get to the start line.
A minute or two before the starting gun shot, Robyn, E.B., and I hurdled the barricade and squeezed into the crowd headed for the start line.
The gun fired and it was happening.
My competer friends set off and within a couple blocks I was left on my own.
For the first half a mile I was disgruntled that I had followed the rules and not sneaked my iPod into the race like everyone else had.
So, instead of rocking out to my running jams like Kanye West [Reminder: this was 2008], I kept myself entertained by people watching and sight seeing.
You know, just like riding the bus.
Except you’re running.
For 13.1 miles.
Over the Hills, Through the Woods
The first five- to six-miles were scenic running through downtown, over the 1-90 bridge and under the tunnel, I actually caught myself thinking, “Well, this isn’t so bad. It’s just like a long run.”
Because I had worked so hard to get to that start line I was careful to follow my friend’s advice during the race: “Have fun and enjoy the moment.”
What an amazing lesson in being present.
Throughout the race I looked around thinking, how often do I get to run down the middle of a downtown Seattle street or through an arboretum full of fall foliage or inside a freeway tunnel?
And then came the first major hill of many to come.
Less present to the surroundings, I became totally attentive to my body.
It’s probably a good thing I only learned a few weeks after the race that the Seattle Marathon is one of the harder courses, not typical for beginners.
At mile nine I tried my first GU liquid energy bar.
I needed something as miles nine to eleven through the woodsy park were deceivingly serene and totally brutal.
There were several high-school runners slightly behind me narrating all the upcoming hills. Oh joy.
I wanted to run faster to get away from them, but I couldn’t. It was taking all of my energy just to keep running.
All I could think was, “this is BS.”
At least I could look forward to my cheerleaders coming up near my brother’s house at mile eleven.
I smiled and waved at them as I passed, all the while my body felt like a used car that was blowing bolts and falling apart one piece at a time.
The last two miles were not pretty.
With pain shooting through my knees and chronic IT injuries, I ran for a few minutes, walked for a few, and then sprinted the last few hundred yard until the finish line.
If nothing else, I would finish strong.
Two hours and twenty-three minutes and I was a completer.
This was winning.
Totally Worth It
Eight months of build up, time and commitment only for the goal to be attained before brunch.
Was it worth it?
During the race, I kept thinking: “I could have sat on the couch in sweatpants watching a movie in the same amount of time that I had run 13 miles.”
But watching a movie is being a spectator to adventure.
Over that eight months, two hours and twenty-three minutes I had been living adventure.
I had tested what I was made of, had challenged what I thought was “best” and had learned that I had a lot farther to go than 13.1 miles to be truly satisfied and winning at life.