Forums >Racing>What is your favorite racing distance?
I run to maintain my weight loss and to explore the city I am in . While it's neat when I PR, I don't much care about it. Due to me being cheap, I don't race locally (why pay money to run somewhere I can otherwise run for free the rest of the year?) and I enter races when I'm on holiday instead of spending money on musicals and museums. A half marathon distance allows me to cover quite a bit of ground of the new city without wiping me out. I can still do other things.
Kindred spirits we are! I wish I had more opportunities to race it. Two-mile is not listed as an option, but I am in absolute heaven when I get my to watch my oldest son race 2-miles in the spring high school track season.
Kindred spirits we are! I wish I had more opportunities to race it.
Two-mile is not listed as an option, but I am in absolute heaven when I get my to watch my oldest son race 2-miles in the spring high school track season.
Me too...I absolutely love the mile. There are two road miles near me every year...both blazing fast, slightly downhill. I think I ran 4:52 last year and got utterly smoked. That's fun stuff though!
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I'm okay with lumping 3200, 2mi, and 3000 all together in one category.
But, the poll lacks all of them, actually, I guess.
It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.
Bacon Party!
My favorite racing distance is always about half of whatever distance I'm racing.
Liz
pace sera, sera
Walk-Jogger
I voted Sprinting because it had a zero on it and it deserves to get at least one vote. I do love sprinting, it's my favorite form of running even if I'm not all that fast at it. I enjoy racing at every distance up to 20 miles and can't really pick one out of all the other choices. I respect the marathon, but it's not one of my favorite distances to run, and anything longer than a marathon is just plain crazy. On a warm sunny day, biking is more fun than running.
Retired & Loving It
The Irreverent Reverend
I voted for the Half, but I do like the 10 Miler, too. That's a fun race.I'm doing my second marathon this spring (after injury kept me out of a race this fall), so I haven't done enough of those to say if I really like that racing distance.
Husband. Father of three. Lutheran pastor. National Guardsman. Runner. Political junkie. Baseball fan.
rather be sprinting
I run to win, so track races with heats are awesome because I technically have a chance.
While I love the sprints, they are so technical and personal (i.e. there isn't much jockeying for position at my low level, just... going all out)... the mile is my true goal race, always. It's a perfect mix of speed, guts, the ability to tolerate pain, AND strategy. A great challenge for overall fitness.
The 800 is also a lot of fun because it's like a mini-mile (to me at least) and positive splits are often actually a GOOD idea! WHAT!
ETA I agree that the 10k lovers are strange. That's the most painful race I've ever run and I didn't even get to go that fast.
PRs: 5k 19:25, mile 5:38, HM 1:30:56
Lifting PRs: bench press 125lb, back squat 205 lb, deadlift 245lb
I've got a fever...
The mile is my favorite distance, yet the 800 is my least favorite. Go figure. 4 laps = great. 2 laps = pure terror
Ironically, the only time I've ever run even splits in an 800 was a PR.
On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.
Half marathon continues to dominate this poll.
Reminds me of an article I saw in RT a few years back (click).
Marathoning great Bill Rodgers has made this move. "The half marathon provides the same sense of quest," he says. "It's all I can fit into my life now, and it provides the sense of racing that the marathon used to. I like the powerful feeling of being competitive; I have fun with that." Rodgers acknowledges that, for some, doing the distance is more important: "Galloway run/walks them, and I admire that as a way to continue marathoning for a lifetime." But, Rodgers says, "I like the racing part of our sport--and it doesn't have to be the marathon. The excellence side of the sport is very important."
"If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus
#artbydmcbride
10k
Runners run
delicate flower
I voted half marathon, though I am beginning to gain a real appreciation for the 5K. Honestly though, I've yet to race a distance I didn't love. Granted, I am still a noob.
<3
People who like the 800 are insane. I graduated high school 25 years ago and I still taste copper whenever I have to dial an 800 number. Now that I'm old and (getting) gray I'll stay in the shallow end with my 5k-to-marathons for laughs and beers, thanks.
Well I did race a mile on the track last winter, but that was enough pain to remind me I don't want any part of an 800 nowadays.
I still taste copper whenever I have to dial an 800 number.
There's a joke here somewhere...
People who like the 800 are insane. I graduated high school 25 years ago and I still taste copper whenever I have to dial an 800 number. . . .
People who like the 800 are insane. I graduated high school 25 years ago and I still taste copper whenever I have to dial an 800 number.
. . .
I know exactly what you mean; I get that flavor around the 3rd lap of a hard mile. I'm not fast enough to get there in just 800 meters.
I was thinking about the mile recently, and how to describe what lap three feels like in a 1-mile race or time trial. Lap three is like that feeling you get when you have held your breath for as long as you can, and yet you must keep holding it a little longer. Your own lungs and heart scream and curse at you frantically to stop this insane nonsense, and you have to learn to ignore them and look ahead to the finish line, where the torture ends. The sooner you get there, the sooner the pain will be over. My spine sweats ice water and my mouth tastes like copper (or is it iron?) at that point.
Hey Ilene, you voted twice! And gave a different answer each time. Has your favorite race distance changed from M to 10K since August?