Running - A hobby or a lifestyle?

I don't want to either sidetrack or hijack the thread but a question has sprung to my mind. A number of people have mentioned being competitive with themselves...is this actually possible?

If I was called out by anyone here for a TT in 12 weeks time I would probably try to do what a few mentioned in relation to a target race ie. sort out diet, drink, sleep etc. On the other hand to compete against myself I would buy faster runners and pray to god that my training plan was a good one :pac: In any sport if you are competing against opposition you would look at what you could do better than them. Do you do that when competing against yourself?

Swashbuckler wrote: »

I had written a full long response to the OP and it got lost in the Internet wilderness and I don't have the energy to start from scratch.

I think when competing with yourself it's more a case of pushing yourself, trying to improve, do better than you've done before, striving to move forward. When I follow the logs and I see people meeting a target and then pushing on to improve on that, to me that's competing with yourself. Not sure if that answers your exact question though.

Is it real competition? Some people have mentioned making a big effort for a target race. If you are competing with yourself would you not make the same effort?

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Can you not compete with yourself in a big target race. Or am I missing the point? Lol
Are you equating competing with yourself with a TT?

A race or a TT...surely beating a PB is the low hanging fruit

What I mean is that you're just trying to compete against (in most cases) a flawed self

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Been trying to beat my 10k PB since March 2017!

Never mind him P, he got fed up arguing with himself in the mirror so he came on here!!!!

OOnegative wrote: »

Never mind him P, he got fed up arguing with himself in the mirror so he came on here!!!!

I only came back for arguments....we can't all be trying to be Mr Popular :rolleyes:

skyblue46 wrote: »

Perhaps the question is more towards myself....But I know that if someone I know challenged me I would do lots different to respond to it, a lot more than I would do to beat a PB..maybe it just reflects the lack of effort I have put in so far...

Yeah I wouldn't disagree with you there. Someone calls me out for a race I'd probably change a lot of things, particularly nutrition/diet.
One of the reasons I've always wanted to do the days of Pbs every July was to pit myself against folks on here which would make me smarten up my act..

I think you can compete with yourself. I think that sometimes competing with yourself is a good way to measure improvements etc. Sometimes competing against others can be a bit too much pressure on yourself. Every race or TT I have done is to prove to myself that I can do better than my previous time, if that happens I'm thrilled but it's not in direct competition with others. I think being competitive is a good thing, well it is for me! Don't get me wrong it shouldn't be the only motivation but it does help. To me being competitive is not about being unhappy with what i've achieved so far but hoping if i train better I can compete with myself to do better in the future:D

OOnegative wrote: »

Course it does, my first ever goal when I started running was to beat 45mins for 10k. You’ll say that’s not competing against myself that’s trying to to break some arbitrary time goal that I set myself. But that wasn’t the way I looked at it and I still have the same view today. I seen it as “well the Barry of 6 months ago couldn’t beat 45mins for 10k, let’s be a better version of him”.

As I said this is how I still view it, you’ll probably have noticed I tend to set arbitrary time goals when it comes to a race, that’s to beat the old Barry and compete with myself. Possibly a silly & flawed way as you said of viewing it, but it works for me and 99 times out of 100 it will bring the best out of me.

Yeah B I get that and it has been a great motivational tool for many of us. I'm just not sure that it answers the question about running to compete. It's running to better oneself. It's a good thing, can bring improvement but it isn't competing....

OOnegative wrote: »

Well I view as competing S, I’m probably wrong but I’m not going to change now!! It’s in competition with yourself.

That's cool. I was only raising the question. I've been very clearly given an answer :pac:

Murph_D wrote: »

Not sure I get the connection between easy running and the hobby vs lifestyle choice. Both types of runner should be doing easy runs easy. Whether you do or not doesn’t put you in one camp or the other, surely?

Bumping this, it got lost and I think it’s worth some discussion (maybe in relation to the ‘what is easy anyway’ part of the original Q).

Maybe the question should be turned around to ask ‘Do you run hard pace runs hard?’ Some runners who are more casual about it probably never get the HR up where it should be (some of the time).

Another thought - ‘lifestyle’ runners are not necessarily better runners. I’ve met a few serial parkrun tourist types for instance, who are totally caught up in the ‘cult of parkrun’ and travel to different events every weekend. By building their lives around parkrun they are almost certainly lifestyle runners (genuine hardcore members of the parkrun tourist subculture). Lovely people, and some of them are very good runners. But a good few are more casual about the performance part.

Which is fine. The point being ‘lifestyle’ vs ‘hobby’, while a marker of dedication and identity, is not necessarily related to ability or performance.

Annie get your Run wrote: »

I don't see any difference between this and competing against other people, the goal is the same, train better to run faster?

Not necessarily, as you can compete and win against others while not necessarily running a PB.

Do you run easy run EASY? What is easy anyway?

Yes. My first mile is often close to 9mins and almost always near enough 8:30 pace. But I don't look at pace on the watch. Up until a few months ago, I just had cadence displayed on my watch - for injury prevention reasons, I could run in the 150s/low 160s if I allowed myself, which would injure me. Now, I have cadence and HR on the watch. But I don't really need to look at it.

Easy, for me, is any pace that doesn't interfere with the things that matter, such as being well rested for sessions or staying uninjured. If I drop mileage, my easy runs get faster. If I add mileage, they get slower.

Sometimes you might need to run even easier, particularly if you're building mileage or if you've hit a session particularly hard or if you've recently started doing 2 instead of 3 sessions a week, etc. Running hard days too hard can be as problematic as misjudging easy efforts.

Mostly, I think you should be aiming for sustainable consistency in your training.

And, from that perspective, I think it's probably more important to think of recovery, holistically, rather than obsessing about pace on your easy days. So too little sleep or too much stress can be more important than some idea of 'training load' taken without context. Depending on the circumstances, 40 easy miles might be harder to pull off some weeks than 60 miles with a couple of sessions.

I don't mind pulling a session or taking a day off if it's too much of a struggle, for whatever reason.

The problem with Strava (and Boards too) is that people see a pace and don't have the context to interpret it (conditions, sleep, stress, etc). That's also a problem for athletes if they don't take context into account in their training, and are trying to hit abstract paces rather than efforts. And this is why XC is so good. It teaches you to run according to conditions/course on the day and removes the stress of the watch.

Do you do S&C, Yoga, Foam rolling, bands, accessories?

Bits and pieces, not religiously. More so when intensity and speed go up heading into the summer. I spent most of 2013-2019 breaking down during the track season at some point and went to a lot of physios, all of whom were good and each gave me a bit of the puzzle but I figured out that what I needed to stay uninjured was a better understanding of my different weaknesses in different situations. And it turned out to be sitting or being hunched over a laptop that was a greater contribution than running to me getting injured. So, S&C tends to be focused on the things that get worse when I do that. Short all-out hill sprints are very good for injury prevention. I also run mostly on grass, uneven trail with ups and downs, in the Phoenix Park. This helps with injury prevention too. (Another reason why XC is useful).

Do you run to compete?

Yes. I started running in my mid-30s just to see if I could run a marathon. But I was still a smoker then and if I hadn't joined a club and discovered track/xc and masters competition, I wouldn't have stuck with it. And I wouldn't have cut out smoking if I hadn't wanted to get more competitive.

I'm not that motivated by times and I find it much harder to get up for non-championship races. My childhood memories of athletics are of track meets from Crystal Palace and Gateshead on the BBC. So, it's always been a competitive sport to me and my strongest memories from my running are medals, competitions and sprint finishes, rather than pbs. I still want to improve though (which means faster pbs) but it's with a view to being more competitive at a higher level.

I'm not so competitive that I'd sacrifice more than 80mins a day to improve (I'm not looking to "be the best that I can be" e.g. I'm not going full-time or spending money on a running coach or strength coach) but I'm also not sure I could get myself out the door 6 or 7 times a week without the prospect of competition. I certainly couldn't have done the amount of running I did during lockdown without a competitive goal at the end of it.

I like the club and team aspect in club running, which is why i like xc. I'm not very good at / suited to xc so that's like a sociable form of competitive running, rather than a main focus.

Do you run to eat biscuits/drink wine?

Definitely not! Overall, the biggest indirect bonus from running has definitely been mental rather than physical.

Lifestyle or Hobby?

I'd say 'sport' and 'identity'.

Sacksian wrote: »

Do you run easy run EASY? What is easy anyway?

Yes. My first mile is often close to 9mins and almost always near enough 8:30 pace. But I don't look at pace on the watch. Up until a few months ago, I just had cadence displayed on my watch - for injury prevention reasons, I could run in the 150s/low 160s if I allowed myself, which would injure me. Now, I have cadence and HR on the watch. But I don't really need to look at it.

Easy, for me, is any pace that doesn't interfere with the things that matter, such as being well rested for sessions or staying uninjured. If I drop mileage, my easy runs get faster. If I add mileage, they get slower.

Sometimes you might need to run even easier, particularly if you're building mileage or if you've hit a session particularly hard or if you've recently started doing 2 instead of 3 sessions a week, etc. Running hard days too hard can be as problematic as misjudging easy efforts.

Mostly, I think you should be aiming for sustainable consistency in your training.

And, from that perspective, I think it's probably more important to think of recovery, holistically, rather than obsessing about pace on your easy days. So too little sleep or too much stress can be more important than some idea of 'training load' taken without context. Depending on the circumstances, 40 easy miles might be harder to pull off some weeks than 60 miles with a couple of sessions.

I don't mind pulling a session or taking a day off if it's too much of a struggle, for whatever reason.

The problem with Strava (and Boards too) is that people see a pace and don't have the context to interpret it (conditions, sleep, stress, etc). That's also a problem for athletes if they don't take context into account in their training, and are trying to hit abstract paces rather than efforts. And this is why XC is so good. It teaches you to run according to conditions/course on the day and removes the stress of the watch.

Do you do S&C, Yoga, Foam rolling, bands, accessories?

Bits and pieces, not religiously. More so when intensity and speed go up heading into the summer. I spent most of 2013-2019 breaking down during the track season at some point and went to a lot of physios, all of whom were good and each gave me a bit of the puzzle but I figured out that what I needed to stay uninjured was a better understanding of my different weaknesses in different situations. And it turned out to be sitting or being hunched over a laptop that was a greater contribution than running to me getting injured. So, S&C tends to be focused on the things that get worse when I do that. Short all-out hill sprints are very good for injury prevention. I also run mostly on grass, uneven trail with ups and downs, in the Phoenix Park. This helps with injury prevention too. (Another reason why XC is useful).

Do you run to compete?

Yes. I started running in my mid-30s just to see if I could run a marathon. But I was still a smoker then and if I hadn't joined a club and discovered track/xc and masters competition, I wouldn't have stuck with it. And I wouldn't have cut out smoking if I hadn't wanted to get more competitive.

I'm not that motivated by times and I find it much harder to get up for non-championship races. My childhood memories of athletics are of track meets from Crystal Palace and Gateshead on the BBC. So, it's always been a competitive sport to me and my strongest memories from my running are medals, competitions and sprint finishes, rather than pbs. I still want to improve though (which means faster pbs) but it's with a view to being more competitive at a higher level.

I'm not so competitive that I'd sacrifice more than 80mins a day to improve (I'm not looking to "be the best that I can be" e.g. I'm not going full-time or spending money on a running coach or strength coach) but I'm also not sure I could get myself out the door 6 or 7 times a week without the prospect of competition. I certainly couldn't have done the amount of running I did during lockdown without a competitive goal at the end of it.

I like the club and team aspect in club running, which is why i like xc. I'm not very good at / suited to xc so that's like a sociable form of competitive running, rather than a main focus.

Do you run to eat biscuits/drink wine?

Definitely not! Overall, the biggest indirect bonus from running has definitely been mental rather than physical.

Lifestyle or Hobby?

I'd say 'sport' and 'identity'.

excellent post.

Murph_D wrote: »

Bumping this, it got lost and I think it’s worth some discussion (maybe in relation to the ‘what is easy anyway’ part of the original Q).

Maybe the question should be turned around to ask ‘Do you run hard pace runs hard?’ Some runners who are more casual about it probably never get the HR up where it should be (some of the time).

Another thought - ‘lifestyle’ runners are not necessarily better runners. I’ve met a few serial parkrun tourist types for instance, who are totally caught up in the ‘cult of parkrun’ and travel to different events every weekend. By building their lives around parkrun they are almost certainly lifestyle runners (genuine hardcore members of the parkrun tourist subculture). Lovely people, and some of them are very good runners. But a good few are more casual about the performance part.

Which is fine. The point being ‘lifestyle’ vs ‘hobby’, while a marker of dedication and identity, is not necessarily related to ability or performance.

Is running their lifestyle or is parkrun?