The Comparison Trap

It’s been a while since I have blogged but I have been thinking about this topic and its effect it has had on me as a runner most of my life and thought it might be a good topic to talk about.  In life it’s human nature for all of us to compare ourselves to other things in our life.  Sometimes we compare ourselves to other people or sometimes we just compare ourselves to other points in our life to see where we are now.  We take a singular moment in the past and compare it to now without thinking about any of the other factors in play, or we take another person through our view of their lives and we compare ourselves.  Both are unhealthy habits and truthfully never tell the full picture.  As runners we constantly are comparing our old results to our current results.  Workouts, races, even easy days we look back and think that we have not progressed or we are getting worse all because of single moments along the way.  Then we look at other runners and compare ourselves and we end up in a negative spiral sometimes for no reason at all.  This is something I like to think of as the comparison trap and it puts an unnecessary amount of pressure and stress on your life when it is rarely needed.  And this stress sometimes causes us to get further away from our goals.

We have all done it as a runner, we have run a race that didn’t go according to the plan we had in our head.  We trained really hard for a race we have run in the past and leading into it we expected big progress or results but on that day, in that singular moment in time we ended up running slower than expected.  In fact maybe we ran slower than we did a few years ago.  Well how is that possible?  In the past few years I have trained this much harder, ran faster times at these other distances, I SHOULD BE THIS FAST NOW.  Instantly we start doubting all the progress we made and think we are actually getting worse, that all our training hasn’t helped.  Then a teammate or other runner may run faster than you at the race and they are progressing it seems quicker and all we can think about is what has gone wrong.  The problem is from the get-go we aren’t operating with all the facts we need to, we are trying to compare apples to oranges and we are destined to most of the time end up with a comparison we don’t like.  What’s funny is, if the reverse had happened and we ran faster I bet most of us would be somewhat modest and say “Well I just had better weather today, or I just felt better this time that’s all”.  Ultimately by trying to compare these two incomparable things (our teammate vs us and a time in the past vs now) we end up with results that sometimes help us lead to a unconscious feeling we already believe, that we aren’t getting faster and maybe we can't anymore.

So why shouldn’t we compare two race results, on the same course several years apart or why would it not be a good idea to compare myself to my teammate?  I know this course I’ve run it before and I train with my teammate I know their training.  Well simply because we are taking a current situation and trying to assume it is the same as in the past, that all the conditions in our life are the same.  When we ran this race several years ago we had differences in our life.  We were a different person, we had different stresses in our lives, heck we had a different training load then we did now.  How you feel on a certain day can never be an exact comparison to a different day.  Life is complicated and to assume you had the exact same conditions in your life between weather, stress, and training several years apart is not rationale.  As for comparing yourself to someone else, this is just something we as humans do way too often.  We look at someone else and assume we know their story and know what they should/shouldn’t do.  We as humans barely are capable of understanding ourselves and our actions, do we really think we can ascertain this information about another human being from our interactions with them.  This type of comparison is by far the unhealthiest and then leads us down a road of jealous and envy.  I am sure if all of us came to a room and put all our problems on the table most of us would very quickly take our problems back and run before assuming we could handle someone else’s.  So instead of comparing yourself to someone else or an older version of yourself, just look at your current life and know that if you continue to grow as a person you are always progressing and getting faster.  Keep believing that there will always be bumps in the road because of other factors but ultimately they will subside if we allow them to and don’t let them fester.  And to always focus on encouraging and supporting those around ourselves instead of comparing ourselves to others because in the end envy will lead us down a dark path.

As for my running lately, I’ve done two races since the NJ Half Marathon where I have placed 5^th in the Germantown 5 miler and where I placed 4^th in the Bel Air Town Run.  I’ve been ramping up training for the summer and have a busy race filled summer so look for me out at many races just testing my limits and having fun.  And lastly as I haven’t announced it here I have been selected to be a part of an awesome Elite training team sponsored by Rabbit and will be running for the RabbitElite squad for the 2018-2019 year.  It’s an exciting new journey and I look forward to all its adventures and bringing all that Rabbit offers to the running community to all of you.

As always thanks for reading and here are some recent photos!

St. Patricks Day 5k and my training so far

As I am getting back on a regular blogging routine I wanted to recap how my winter is going and my goal races for the Spring and then lastly my past race/week.  This training cycle has been a slower buildup then I am used to, as I spent much of December, January and February just grinding out weeks with long runs and the occasional speed stuff during the week.  I constantly felt like I was taking 2 steps forward and one step back between re-injuries with my hamstring and various illnesses.  At one point after 5 days straight off in January dealing with the flu to instantly be followed up with a stomach virus I was beyond frustrated.  I had started feeling like my goals for the Spring were going out the window and my negativity had quickly started festering.  At this point between the constant stream of positive energy from my coach and me just taking a step back and giving myself some perspective I was able to just acknowledge that this is just the ebb and flow of running.  No training cycle will go perfectly, no plan is perfect, it is just about being able to adapt and keep believing in yourself. 

During this training cycle I’ve had some poor weeks down to 30 miles, I’ve missed several workouts and long runs and even did not hit the times I wanted to on some workouts.  In the past I think that would have weighed heavily on me but this year I’ve been a lot more mindful with my running.  While taking time off because I was sick is frustrating I waited until I felt 100% before starting up again and I think that helped me hop back into it.  Then to follow-up the flu having to miss workouts and long runs because of my hamstring and a stomach virus was hard to stay positive through as I know in the past I would have run through these things but I kept realizing by doing the right thing in January/February it will allow me to be better off in April.  Progression is not always a straight line in front of you as there are many obstacles, barriers and sometimes steps backwards to get you to where you want to go, but the key is to make it all a part of your journey.  The good and the bad of my training so far is what has gotten me to where I am today.  It’s obviously easier to look back with confidence now that I am running well that I made the right decisions, but I’d argue it’s because of the decisions I made is why I am running well today.

I finally raced for the first time since Boston 2017, in a local 5k with some really good competition upfront.  When my fitness started coming around I pinpointed this 5k on a Friday evening as a race I wanted to run to gauge some of my fitness ahead of Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in early April but I told my coach I was unsure if I could run a fast 5k.  Last year I spent a lot of the year doing specific 5k workouts so I had confidence when I ran 16:10 at the Shamrock 5k in March.  So going into this race I was somewhat unsure and I really didn’t set a goal, although if you had asked me I would have guessed I’d run about 17 minutes.  My goal was to just run hard and race a bunch of my teammates who were all very fit right now.  I also got to run a race with my wife for the first time in several years so that was very fun!  Leading up to the race I was feeling really good on my runs and had no real hamstring concerns but I was still a bit skeptical, also this was the first real race I was going to be running with my coach so I was going to basically judge the entire experience on the outcome of this race(I kid).  I was operating on confidence in my ability to get up for a competitive race, and the fitness I have achieved over the past several months which has been very different then past training cycles. 

So Friday night came and it was of course a cold and extremely windy evening so I did my best to ignore all that noise.  Everyone has to run in this so no reason for making excuses or worrying about it.  I felt good on the warmup, tossed in some strides and rolled up to the line extremely calm(well calm for me, which is still probably super stressful for other runners.  If you ever see me at a race see how antsy I am at the starting line.  There are countless photos of me bouncing up and down everytime I get on the starting line).  The race started and it was immediately downhill and everyone was flying, probably 400 meters in I look around and I am back in about 14^th place 50 meters back of the lead pack.  The very first thoughts to hit my mind, Am I ready for this, Am I trained properly.  I quickly tossed those thoughts away, (remembering the fantastic book I read “How Bad Do You Want It?) settled in and moved to the inside to run the tangent while several other people went very wide.  As we hit the straight-away into the wind I started to get comfortable and confident again and moved up.  As we hit about 800 meters in I was in the top 5 and settled in trying to get some cover from the wind (there was none).  Andy and Conrad had pulled away a little so a pack for 3-4-5 had opened up behind them and I knew we had a big climb coming up with a lot of downhill to follow.  I knew Ed running next to me was a fantastic downhill runner so I knew after the mile it was time to break up the pack if I wanted any chance.  I came through the mile around 5:10 according to my watch and started working up the hill.  I broke up the pack a bit and came in close contact on Conrad but once I hit the top I lost some focus going down the hill.  Missing out on that beautiful sweet free energy, something I need to work on taking advantage of.  As I rolled through 2 in 10:30 or so I felt good and sitting in 3^rd but was not sure what I’d have left for that last mile.  Instead of focusing ahead on running hard I did my usual look over the shoulder worrying about getting caught, which is one of my worst traits I’ve picked up.  This time I managed to hold onto 3^rd and pushed into the finish line to run 16:21 but felt I left a little out there from all that worrying about getting caught.

16:21 is my second fastest 5k since college, 11 seconds slower than Shamrock last year and on a cold, windy evening in mid-march I’ll gladly take it.  I had some general concerns I was not ready to push this hard in the week leading up to the race but I felt I did a fantastic job to ignore all that noise on race day and just be confident I was ready to race.  During the race I did not let myself get psyched out or worried, I was very mindful to run the race I was capable of and to execute according to my strengths and I am happy for that.  And above all else I am just happy to be back to running fast after a long 9 months of getting here.  The road back sometimes isn’t all physical, I’ve dealt with a lot of mental demons/barriers over the months thinking maybe I just won’t ever be able to do this competitively again.  The pain just would never go away.  Sometimes as a runner when you get injured and can’t run you isolate yourself a bit, and a lot of my 2017 I did that and I’m sure it didn’t help with me getting back out there mentally.  So getting past all of that for me is a huge win.

My 2018 is just beginning and the best is yet to come, I have some big goals for 2018 and as long as I stay smart, motivated, and focused I think I can achieve them.  I couldn’t be prouder of all my Falls Road teammates and friends who ran so fast and kept me on my toes all race and for the past 9 months.  When I couldn’t run I pulled tons of motivation from watching them all run such fast times and I couldn’t wait to be back out there with them.  As for what’s up next on 8 April I’ll be running my first Cherry Blossom 10 miler going after a shiny new PR and then at the end of April I will be traveling back to the Jersey Shore to run the NJ Half Marathon and give it all I’ve got.  As always thank you so much for reading this and I hope you enjoyed.