Ever since I was a little kid, running in the summer has often meant racing. In my experience, most towns have a run/walk at some point during the year and often during a summer festival. When I five or six years old, my dad would go to a race, and I would run in a kids' run for 1/4 mile or 1/2 mile or something like that. Then, at about nine or ten I started running some 2-mile races and then, just a bit later, the occasional 5k. (That's about 3.1 miles for you metric-phobic types.) And that's how things went through my teens. And then I went to college, where my cross country race was an 8k (juuuust short of 5.0 miles) and in track I ran the occasional 10k (about 6.2 miles, but you figured that out already). A lot of these smaller community run/walks actually have two races: a 10k and a 5k or a 5 mile and a 2 mile (or sometimes the interesting 10k/2 mile combo). Now that I've become a man, I've put my childish runs behind me. I always take the longer option. And it's great. Pretty much all the high schoolers and quite a few of the adults go with the shorter race. Meanwhile, I, being unafraid of the longer distance, have much less competition, leaving me with pretty good odds at picking up an age group award at these little races in little towns. Plus, the longer distance makes me feel like I've done more with my life. It's really a win-win. All it takes is the willingness to go the extra mile(s).
Grace and peace,
BMH
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