Runners and their compulsion over time and distance

Moe Johnson Running with Moe

After many years of running and putting on races. I have come to the conclusion that runners are, for the most part, a compulsive group. They tend to generally be obsessive about three things. One is the distance they run, another is the time they run and the third is the time and distance they run. A runner or walker may mention that they run for fun and the distance and time are not important. There may be a few runners and walkers that actually are not concerned about the distance they covered or the time it took them. This may be true, but at races I have entered and organized, the clock keeps running until the last person crosses the finish line, and that last runner will look up to check the time.

I have known runners that have stepped on a rock in the road and sprained an ankle. They had their watch stopped before they hit the ground. One runner I know saw a car that had started to roll into the street. He stopped his watch before he jumped in and stopped the car as he was not running during this rescue mission. I have known a number of runners that will run a new route, and after the run, they will get in their car and measure the distance they ran. I have to admit I was obsessive during my running years, and I knew the distance of most of the routes I ran. From my house to Hunter and back is 13 ½ miles, Holiday Inn is 2 miles, and the loop around the access road is 6.2 miles.

Distance was the one thing I noted in my runner’s log book. I ran over 2,000 miles several years ago and distance was the important thing. To qualify for the Boston Marathon I had to run under a 3:10 time. For that race time was the important thing. I tried to break my habit of keeping a time on my watch for every run. I put my watch on the table before I stepped out the door for a run. But I checked the wall clock as I went out the door. When I returned after the run, the first thing I checked was the time on that wall clock. That is what runners call obsessive about time.

I tried running with the time I ran instead of the distance. I was going to run for 45 minutes and not worry about how far I ran. It wasn’t long after that run that I measured the distance. I had a mile route from my house around the neighborhood and had about 200 yards left before I reached my house. I did mile repeats on this neighborhood route and walked that 200 yards before I did another mile run. And I hate to admit it, but I checked the time after every mile.

Usually the first time a runner enters a marathon the important thing is to finish and not worry about how long it took. The important thing is you ran a marathon. My first marathon was in Houston, and I wanted to break four hours. This seems to be the magic finishing time for many first time marathon runners. I hit the 26 mile mark at 3:45 and had .2 miles to go. That is less than a quarter of a mile. After running for 26 miles and almost four hours a person is not necessarily able to add and subtract time very well. I panicked and thought I needed to sprint to run that quarter mile in 15 minutes. That is like running once around a track at school. A slow walk will get you around that track in 15 minutes. My mind thought I needed to sprint. After running almost four hours and 26 miles the muscles of my legs were not in the best condition. And sprinting with tired muscles was not advised as I found out later. I crossed the finish line in 3:48 and my legs locked up. My friends leaned me against a post to put my warm ups on as I couldn’t bend my legs. They had to lift me up over a curb because I couldn’t bend my knees to step up over a curb. I rode home in the back seat face first as I couldn’t sit down for the first couple of hours of the ride home.

When I look back on these events and remember them I realize I am not alone in this obsession with time and distance. When runners get together for socials or relaxing after a run, the comments shared by almost every runner is a very similar story of being obsessed with a time or distance event. There were a few that had times down to the tenth of a second for a run and a few had feet or yards added to the miles they ran. When I mention that runners are a compulsive group the stories and tales I have heard over the years back me up with this statement. And with the watches available to runners today this makes the recording of time and distance so easy. And now the watches include the elevation they ran and will include a map of the route to show other runners. That is the runner’s compulsion.