Qualitative Mania or Quantitative Success
Are we so podium-obsessed that we forgot this stuff isn’t easy?
The main thing I’ve always loved about marathons is that it has long been one of the few competitive sports an adult can engage in where nobody expects you to win. Along with tattoo-worthy Ironman finishes, it is culturally seen as just enough to finish. And when there are sometimes thousands of participants in a single event, this is also pretty realistic. So why do I feel like I’m seeing a drift from that mindset for adults doing very difficult events?
I once ran a 4:01 marathon. You can’t imagine the anguish. You can’t imagine the pained looks on all runners’ faces when I tell them about that. “You shouldn’t have peed” is something I got told when I mentioned I lost time waiting for a toilet (event organisers looking after women is a whole other post that I think we’ll have to circle back to one day!). But, all things considered, it was the best I could have done on the day. I was running on an injury (oh yes let’s circle back to that one day too), it was a hot day, and I had trained for a 4:00 finish. Being one minute late was actually about as good as I could have hoped for. I left it at that and haven’t tortured myself with thoughts of attempting the Vancouver Marathon again. I didn’t cry and I still went out for lunch to celebrate.
Lucky for me, that race was held before TikTok had entered the conversation. If you’re not on that platform, well done, you’re not missing much. I won’t name names, because I’m classy, but there is a video making the rounds where a runner influencer has shared that she nearly “unalived herself” trying to get a PB, a caption over images of her being taken off the course by a team of paramedics. I scrolled past that dumpster fire and then seemed to be fed by the algorithm more bummed out athletes with excuses/explanations to the social media fans where runners missed the sub-3 (huge shoutout to the first ever sub-2!!) or whatever insane goal that they had in mind.
A week later, my other beloved sport, ultra cycling, had one of its premier events, the Traka, a 570 hilly AF gravel course in Catalonia. I know it’s a little red flag to open a statement with “I’m not trying to be mean…”, but please believe me that I’m really not. In the days since the Traka, a race where there can only be two winners (male and female), I have read a handful of excuse-laden race reports. Some of which ended in Top 10 results, which to me is insanely incredible, even if not the first place they had been shooting for. Many seemed to be about crashes and broken wheels (one of which - again, not naming the names - blamed the race and the organisation for forcing them to descend so fast that they broke their wheel. Buddy.), and my heartfelt condolences to people who crashed out. That does sting. But overwhelmingly were just posts from cyclists who did finish but were still upset with how they placed in one of the fastest, most competitive fields in Europe.
You guys.. What. Is. Going. On.
I consider myself lucky, although maybe athletes like the above probably just think I’m sad, that I come from a background of being very much not athletic and personally voted Least Likely to Succeed when it comes to sporting competitions. I find this lucky because it means that any finish line I cross is celebrated, at least by me, as a huge success and a monumental moment that the younger version of me can be extremely proud of. So, to see someone call it “not my day” for anything less than first place in a 547km non-stop gravel race because they didn’t win is just a bit of a head-scratcher for me.
Coming in with another potentially unpopular opinion, but I am huge fan of medals for participation. I don’t need a literal medal, because I don’t really know what to do with them and so I think most of them end up as waste, but, you know what I mean. Every finish line is worthy of an award. This stuff is not normal and it’s not easy. Whoever said that marathons are no longer impressive, and that the world has moved on to ultramarathons, really got it wrong. This stuff is hard. It takes consistent dedication and a healthy lifestyle that most westerners either don’t or can’t or won’t commit to.
The poison in the water of endurance sports, I believe, is podium-mania and FKT-fixation, and social media and traditional media are both showering gasoline on top of that fire. At Boston, another huge event that just passed, Nike pissed off the whole world with their store slogan “runners welcome, walkers tolerated”, because apparently being average is just disgusting now. I love the London Marathon TV coverage in the UK because it goes for most of the day, covering all sorts of athletes, especially those in silly costumes or big charity efforts, not just the winners and world-record breakers. But most race media, however, will only show the winner, ignoring the hundreds or thousands of normies toddling behind them, and as a result, those achievements are seen as lesser and only worthy of Nike’s tolerance, at best.
When I did my first marathon, a gaping fifteen years ago, I was told with absolute authority in my run club that “just to finish is an achievement”. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say something like that in a very long time. Maybe it was social media, maybe it was the recent rapid progression in professional cycling, maybe it’s how we raise our kids, but I fear the world of amateur sport has lost sight of feeling good about itself. And I think that’s really sad.
I’m not saying we should all just not try so hard that our wheels break sometimes. I love sport, and I love pushing myself to my limit and finding out what lays beyond that line. A lot of times, a broken wheel or a team of paramedics are what lay beyond that line, and that’s why sport is so thrilling. It’s wild and unpredictable and can break your heart now and then. What I am saying is that we should bring our own yardstick along to our races to measure our own success. If you came 6th in a race, I’m not going to unfollow you or expect you to post a list of reasons for why you didn’t do better. I think 6th is pretty good. I think 60th is also good. Whatever. Tell me what was awesome about your day and not a list of self-flagellating disappointments. If you made it to the finish line ahead of the cutoff, you must have done a lot of things right, because most people wouldn’t be able to do that.
I’ve secretly started a new thing where, when someone tells me they’ve signed up to something, I tell them ‘well done’. Not after they finish and achieve their goal, but before the race gun goes off. Why? Because it’s still incredible that anyone can do these crazy things. They are not normal and you are an amazing, dedicated, strong person for putting yourself to the test like that. What I will also offer, if you’d like, is the suggestion that you have qualitative goals for your big challenge, and that not all of your quantitative goals are all based on things outside of your control, like Maddy Nutt showing up at the start line.
I think the biggest disappointment is not coming away from a race having missed your target, but to come away from a race feeling disappointed at all. You did a really cool big thing. You trained for months and spent your hard-earned money on it. What a tragedy to finish and then spend the next days telling everyone that the race wasn’t what you had hoped for. I get that a good handful of athletes are there to win and their sponsors demand results, but there will only be one winner, so if that’s the only yardstick you brought with you, you’re setting yourself up for potential heartbreak. Have something else that makes you love your sport and lets you feel awesome about yourself for getting to the start line.
P.S.: My excuses? I am traveling right now and I wrote this post on an iPad mini with a tiny, tiny keyboard and it was kind of frustrating so if there are typos please ignore them, and if the formatting is awful please blame the substack app and not me. I would have added some nicer photos to this post but it took over twenty minutes just to add one so I gave up. I also needed to hyperlink a lot of references but just couldn’t get the app to cooperate. I’ll fix those when I get back to my laptop. I really did try, I’m sorry xoxoxo
I ran London marathon for the first time in 2017. It was my second ever marathon and my first road marathon. I trained for sub-4 and was disappointed to finish in 4:17. This despite the fact that the day before the race I went Actually Blind. I woke up crosseyed. I could see clearly to about my fingertips, if I held my arms in front of me. This persisted until race day. Of course there was no time to organise or train with a guide runner. I considered deferring but I'd trained so hard. I didn't even Google to see if it was still possiblev at that late hour. I used the runner in front of me as my guide.
I was having an MS relapse. My second that year. I recovered (luckily, not everyone does) and by the end of 2017 I was finally diagnosed. I started treatment at the start of 2018, and I haven't had a relapse since.
Of course now I know that aside from the not being able to see thing, MS also causes extreme fatigue. Looking back I think it was a miracle I finished that race, and that 4:17 was a completely respectable time. I got my sub-4 in my next road marathon. I spent my next few races trying to get a qualifying time to get back into London Marathon (my first time was on a ballot place). A process I didn't really enjoy and didn't succeed in.
Then I discovered they do disability places! I went back to London Marathon in 2024, ran it at a much slower pace, and enjoyed being able to look around me, see the crowd, spot (and stop to chat to) my friends, read the signs.
Personally, I think that while social media has some benefits it has created an environment where people’s entire self worth revolves around likes and clicks and social media induced expectations. There are some people who I doubt would even participate if they couldn’t post about it or document it for social media.