Winning

Winning is very important. Make no mistake about that. If you have any doubts about that
you must have been out of the New York area during the Yankee mania that dominated the area during October. A team that couldn’t draw 20,000 people to games in August
attracted hordes who thought nothing of waiting outside for 48 hours to pay double and triple normal ticket prices. Then 3 ½ million showed up for a parade.

It was legendary Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne who is first credited with the oft-quoted
.” Show me a good loser and I will show you a loser.”

And then there is running.. I am pretty certain everyone who has every run a race has been asked at least a few hundred times by friends, co-workers, family and neighbors
“Did you win?”.
The question is almost never by runners so if everyone in the above categories is a runner then you never have been asked the question.

If you’re like most of us, you have learned inventive ways of answering. Of course there’s
always the lie “Yes”. After giving that answer, I rarely get asked another question.

I actually did finish first at a small two mile race 10 years ago, but in a large majority of my races, I have won nothing more than the satisfaction of finishing. Soemtimes I ran well, sometimes I didn’t, but I left no imprint on any race I entered. In over 200 starts, I only dropped out of one.

I’ve learned more about spectators perceptions of runners by working the finish line at races. There is much crowd attention paid when the lead car heads back with the first
place finisher just behind. After about the first ten finish, attention wanders.
Based on what I’ve seen, no one is paying attention by the time I finish, with the exception of club members and friends. And I am considered an above average runner who normally finishes in the top fifth of a race.

And yet, every time I toe the line, I consider myself a winner. How many of the 30,000
stories from New York will most people ever hear? There are so many great stories in there. The news will only tell you about the winner(s) and maybe a human interest story like a couple getting married.

A person who probably never ran a race,
José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955), Spanish essayist, philosopher.in Quixote, “Preliminary Meditation” said it best

“There may be as much nobility in being last as in being first, because the two positions are equally necessary in the world, the one to complement the other. “

Now, if I can just remember to say that a few times.