I posted the following on facebook last night: “I’m looking for a mud color trail back to back non certified warrior ultra extreme anything but Real Competitive Road Race for late June. Seems to be the craze, suggestions?”
Of course it was tongue in cheek but the underlying message resonates nearer true than humour admits. I met with the RD of Boystown yesterday, interesting to hear that the numbers are down this year. Down just slightly from last year’s record 3000+, but still a trend worth noting. The RD of the NE5 scheduled for June 3 is also seeing a reduction in entries. Some of it can be attributed to the falling price of gas, more people doing more things out of town this year than last.
A bigger influence though is the proliferation of new events this year, more than I’ve ever seen on the Nebraska scene. It seems as though there is a novelty run popping up just about every week, well marketed events that are geared towards the novice to slightly seasoned runners in the community. Promoted as “Events”, “Participation”, “Runs” and “Bucket List” affairs, nary a mention of Racing from the entire lot.
But don’t get me wrong, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the running community as a whole. Each one of these people are getting exposed to the joys of fitness and running. And they will in turn decide to participate in other events, so in the long run we’ll all have more runners in our events. At least that is my theory. A couple of anecdotal observations: My buddy Matt is a bartender at the Upstream. He decided to train up for his first ever run, the Warrior Dash, and oh by the way he enjoyed the training so much he hopped in the Lincoln Half and ran a respectable 1:58 in his first ever organized run. And my client Tammy initially contacted me wanting also to get trained up for the Warrior Dash, she is running the 5 Mile this coming Monday.
But me, I’ll still take a good old fashioned mano-a-mano, fire the gun, first across the line, bragging rights and bravado, loser leaves town foot race. No handweights, no Zumba, no cross fit, no treadmills, no belly crawling, no excuses. Me versus you, Real Racing. Am I a disappearing breed?
This morning’s Geezer Run. Nicole Nelson, Linda, Denny, Jody, Kathy Palmer (debut), Angie, Kim & Coach John. I threw down hard on all of them, showed no mercy at all, don’t let the facade of smiles belie their lamentations of inglorious defeat. V is for victory!
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