race donut

I signed up for another race later this fall, adding to my training schedule for no other reason than the simple excuse of having a race on my roster. And something else, too. See…

It’s not a long race.

It’s not a particularly challenging race.

It’s basically a late-autumn fun run.

But here’s the thing. As part of doing the legwork for this writing project I’ve been reading through a lot of old writing I did on the topic of running and I came to a revelation of a sort: I used to have this ineffable raw enthusiasm for this sport, routinely getting excited for the smallest achievements and craving the simplest of participation and novelty of events and just being out there on the trails whenever and wherever.

We like to blame everything on the pandemic these days—and, sure, maybe that era played a role and changed us all a bit—but I think my increasing personal, um, let’s call it “seriousness” around running in the last couple years is probably due in part to many factors: rising race costs, fomo from friends accomplishing huge distances, and the weight of responsibilities I often feel around being one of the key organizers of our run crew, just to name a few biggies.

Reading a bunch of my old posts I realized it used to be that I was just excited about being there, doing it, participating. I tracked data and stats and all that stuff, too, but the heart of it was always just exploration and fun and experience. I loved that. And, too, I miss it.

So, when recently someone reminded us that registration was open for the Fall Classic, a five and ten miler fun run with a gourmet donut party at the end, I embraced the fun of participation in the spirit of me ten years ago: I signed up for the five miler, just to be part of it.

I don’t know if I’ll keep that spirit alive as the world rolls on, but maybe I should. Maybe I should be more focused on fun and sweet rewards than maxxing my pace and locking in distances that are increasingly out of reach as I get older.

Sometimes you need to focus on the donut.