• Running isn’t the only challenge •
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Philadelphia this past fall was my 25th marathon; competitive marathon, that is. What do I mean by “competitive,” particularly when 3 of them were not for myself (but to pace others)? It’s the question that I had to ask myself as I counted them up.
I’m no Kipchoge or Dykes, but their accomplishments were very much in my mind as I did my tallying. Eliud Kipchoge broke the previously thought unbreakable 2-hour marathon record. Because of the circumstances, though, it was not considered an official world record.
SRC’s very own Just Gene had his own version of unofficial in 2018 when he “broke” the marathon AG record held by Canadian Ed Whitlock since 2004: unofficial because it was not a USATF-sanctioned event.
As I said, I’m neither of those 2 phenomenal runners; I was just trying to make a decision about what could nominally be considered competitive. Pacing other runners was primarily competitive for them, but still seemed legitimate because it happened during official events, i.e., ones that included other registered competitors. That excluded the 2 training runs I did that met or exceeded 26.2 miles (ultra!). The former was for my first marathon back in 2012 when I wanted to prove to myself (like many other novice marathoners) that I could actually do it in competition. The latter was when I did an out-and-back training run from Jenkintown to Doylestown a bunch of years later. (Having misidentified the halfway mark, I still had to get home, of course.)
One of those competitive marathons in my tally, however, was at Delaware Running Festival in 2021. The race was officially canceled because of inadequate police staffing. The half marathon took place as scheduled over the trail-based 2nd half of the original marathon. Already postponed once, I did the marathon anyway by starting 2 hours before the official half and running the official half officially (Cerebrun #108a). By my previous reasoning, though, that doesn’t meet the definition of competitive because I didn’t do the first half during an official event.
This is where I yield to the sanctioned arbiter of such matters: me. So, in my book, the PR that I established 4 years ago still stands, Kipchoge’s record is still legitimate, and Just Gene is still awesome. I’m satisfied.
-CtCloser (Calvinthe) “Negative Split or Positive Splat” #dothedue
FINE PRINT ¶Text by Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-published: Facebook Shawmont Running Club (ZY Weekly Newsletter 3/22/25), Shawmont Running Club website, Ruminations by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Rumination only with added caption.
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