Just Another Old White Guy

I was disappointed enough when Senator Hillary Clinton was forced out of the campaign (not to mention angry and sad and frustrated about all of the crap that she'd been subjected to and the ridiculous comments that could ONLY have been directed at a strong woman - is the thought of a woman in power really still so very scary to so many people???!!! how sad... how shameful...).

So when the announcement came about Senator Barack Obama's choice for a VP, that was just more sickly sweet nasty cloying icing on the cake. Great - just what we need - another old white guy for VP. Thanks so much, DNP. Way to go.

I think this editorial cartoon sums it up quite nicely. So much for change...

Vancouver or Toronto sounds more and more appealing every day.

Seductive Statistics

I often struggle with my running in terms of what my goals are, how much is "enough," and how fast I "should" be going. As much as I enjoy having running buddies at Fleet Feet, it's also sometimes difficult to put things in perspective when I'm surrounded by people who run as much or more than I do, especially when I feel as though they're all faster than I am.

Logically, I know this isn't true, but it can be hard to avoid putting pressure on myself to match up to someone else's goal or pace, even if that's not realistic for me. I'm great at reminding others that you have to "run your own race" and "train your own training," but I don't always put that into practice for myself.

Case in point: One of the FF regulars, A., often runs with her brother, B. Most of the time, they end up out in front of me, but at a certain point, the distance between us remains constant, meaning that our paces from then on are about the same. However, I don't usually feel that I can catch up to them, and at a recent 10K, they both finished in front of me by several minutes. I also discovered that A. did the CIM 2007 in 3:28 (!!!) and the recent SF Marathon in 3:45, which she described in the context of "running slower and feeling better."

I worked so hard for my sub-4:00 CIM 2007 time of 3:57, and I can't even imagine what it would be like to run a 3:28 marathon. The 3:45 feels somewhat more within the realm of possibility, but probably not on a hilly course like the one in SF. So even though I'm impressed by her accomplishments, it makes me feel somehow less.

Focusing on statistics like this can be seductive, because those figures are so concrete and tangible. Even though I know that what really matters is my own goals and how I feel, it's so tempting to get pulled into the numbers.

So here's a number that I discovered today that I can really embrace... According to Runner's World, only 17% of women who ran marathons in 2007 finished in under 4 hours (September 2008, p. 36). That puts me in some pretty darn good company, and I can definitely be proud of being in the top 17% of female marathoners.

Now that's a stat to inspire and motivate and remember whenever I start feeling discouraged!