Warmups

Runners are polite, but distant, during warm-ups. At most you wave a hand of acknowledgment and maybe call out the name of your rival. Yes, they are your friends and acquaintances, but they are your competitors first, even the guys on your own team to some degree. You can be friends with them later, after you beat them as badly as you can.

You have a mission to accomplish and you cannot waste any time or energy on being overly friendly before a race. It might make you mentally weak later on when you need to be mentally tough. There can be no compassion or mercy for this person who is/was your friend. No, not friend, not now, think instead rival, competitor, enemy. These guys have to die a horrible death of excruciating pain on the last hill in the last mile. You cannot think of them as your friends, not now, not before the race. Being nice could lead to mercy, and you cannot have that. You have to mentally prepare yourself for a self-crucifixion also known as a road race, and “nice” doesn’t belong anywhere in your train of thought. Go warm-up your body, and steel your mind.

Nobody says much at the start. You avoid looking anyone in the eye lest they see the fear that lies behind yours. You aren’t afraid of any of the other runners. They are going to do whatever they are going to do and you will have little effect on them during the race. You can only control yourself. What you are afraid of is the pain that awaits you throughout the race and the inherent mental struggle.

You know how much pain awaits you. Are you up to it today, one more time? Will you seek it out and embrace it as you have day after day in practice? Have you pressed yourself in practice runs to know exactly how much abuse you can put on your body early, middle, and late in the race? Are you sufficiently hardened and accustomed to the pain through track repetitions? When it really gets difficult at the end, will you press on, taking a chance that it is too much and too soon, and tie up with lactic acid.

Or will you play it safe? No one will know. The pain is miserable in the middle of the race. The miles are so much longer when you are hurting. The seconds creep by at a snail’s pace. If you ease up just a little bit, here, now, in this middle mile, it won’t hurt so much now, and you will have some extra for a spectacular finish; a horrible time, but a crowd-pleasing finish. The veterans will know you wussed out in the middle of the race to make that big finish possible. Only you will know, and the veterans will know, and every other runner in the race will know it too, you wuss!

Everyone hates a wuss. Most of all, you hate wusses, and you don’t want to be one, and you don’t want to hate yourself for being one in this race and have to wait until the next race to redeem yourself. You dread the thought of living a whole week knowing you were a wuss and everyone else knowing it too!

Oh God, you pray, please don’t let me be a wuss. Help me be strong. Help me endure. Don't let me fail me. Help me to run a race that I, and everyone I know, can be proud of.


Don’t be a wuss.

Be strong.

Be brave.