Better Than Average

I have always been mid-pack in everything that I do.  Except in high school track where I won some 100 meter and 200 meter conference championships and in football where I was an all-conference running back, most of the rest of my endeavors in sport, business and as a person has been mid-pack.  Of course, this is my assessment.  When I read the USA running stats today, it was nice to see that I am better than average in distance running.  I'm not built for distance running and I probably have more fast-twitch muscles than slow-twitch.  But, with work, perseverance and consistency, I have managed to hold my own for nearly 20 years.  This year I will be celebrating my 20th anniversary of my first marathon, although I have a gap between 1995 and 2001 due to an injury incurred playing softball, at a company outing no less.  I ripped up a hamstring pretty good and it took years for proper healing.  So, here I am 20 years after my first marathon and 21 after my first distance race ever (a 5K) still above average.  The USA running stats are pretty interesting reading. I love stats and these tell a good story about running in general and the health of the sport. I won't get into the debate about specialty events because I think that anything that makes people active is a good thing. Although 5K's have held onto the top spot for numbers of finishers, the half-marathon is the fastest growing event and for all events, in aggregate, women now comprise the majority of finishers. I won't regurgitate all the stats here and I need to analyze more closely anyway. But, what I did take notice of was that there were only 541,000 marathon finishers which sounds like a lot until compared to half-marathon finishers and the 8 million 5K finishers. These stats are for the USA only. As for times, I now plan to make it a goal that I continue to be better than average, meaning, running times at each distance better than the average. I have only run marathons this year, but now I have a barometer for performance. The other interesting omission, is that ultras (at least with the initial reading I have done) are not included as individual events. I beleive they are grouped into "other." Although I have enjoyed ultras, I certainly haven't found my place in them yet and I know that I can do better than I have. Anyway, a week from today, I will run marathon 79, state 47 in Alaska and hope to still perform better than average. With only 20 runners, it should be interesting.

Days 190-193: 18 miles, 2014: 983 miles