Learning to Say No

I have been getting a lot better at saying no lately.  I used to say yes to every experience opportunity that crossed my path.  Run this race?  Sure!  Take this trip? Absolutely!

A couple of years ago, I was racing constantly.  On some level, it was easier, because I was just keeping my training base high.  (I also believe that was the time that I put on this stubborn 20 pounds that I can’t seem to get rid of, but that’s another story.)  But I wasn’t racing to race.  I was racing to finish.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with racing to finish, but it shouldn’t be your only goal.  If you’re headed to the start line of your first half marathon or you’re coming back from an injury, then yes, your goal should just be to finish in one piece.  And maybe on a whim, you sign up for a race and you don’t have the time to truly dedicate, so your goal is to go out and have fun and finish.  These are all fine things.

But I have come to believe that after a while, your goal should be more than just finishing. Maybe you set a time goal for yourself.  Maybe you just want to improve over your last race.  Maybe you want to help pace a friend through the race.  But I think you need to do more than just show up.  (Though I suppose if your race goals are to race X number of races this year or a race in every state, then yes, just finishing is a good goal.)

To that end, I’ve been saying no to more races lately.  If I’m not going to put in the time to really train, I’m not going to do the race.  That’s not a hard and fast rule – I’m running the Disney 10K this year because I couldn’t bring myself to go to Marathon Weekend and not run anything.  But I’m not aiming for any sort of PR.  Just going to have fun.  But the month after that, I will be actively racing the Donna Half.

I think I came to this concept when I started doing triathlons.  This was something new.  This was something I really had to work for.  I couldn’t just show up at the start line and know that I would finish. And while I was training and experiencing that sort of anticipation and excitement and nervousness, I realized that I missed it.  Just going out and planning to finish a race didn’t give me the rush that I had gotten early in my running career.

So this means that I’m not running as many races as I was before (which has been good for my bank account), but I think I’m getting much more out of the miles I’m putting in.  I think it’s a good trade-off.