Why lie?

We're runners. Let's face it; our race times matter.

Usually they are intensely personal and don't matter at all to anyone else but else, but they matter to us.

Personally, I don't lie about my times.  One of my life-mottos is WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get.  Sometimes I'm not proud of my times, other times I'm ecstatic.  Most of you when you see my times probably think that I should go back to playing shuffleboard or whatever else it is that slow people like me do to keep us occupied. I get out of running what I put into it.  If I was more dedicated and pushed harder I would see more results.  But I'm happy, I'm (mostly) healthy, and I absolutely love running.

Do you compare yourself to others when you run?  I don't mean in the pseudo-competitive, "I'm going to pick that person off next" way, but in a serious way?  Or are you competing with yourself and your expectations?

To stop beating around the bush: what would drive someone to lie about their race times?

If you're going to do something public like tweeting about your running and racing or blogging about it, you owe your readers some honesty.  Misrepresenting yourself on your blog is disingenuous and dishonest.  As is moderating your comments to such an extent that the only comments published are unanimously positive.  This creates the (intentionally) false impression that you are a faster runner than you are. And get this (watch out; this is bold) - no one but you actually cares.

One particular blogger I follow has this problem. And it's bad. She blogs anonymously, so the sky is the limit in terms of her hyperbole. Finishing Chicago in 6:48 hasn't kept her from publicly stating that she finished in "around 5:30" or even "about four and a half hours." A half marathon that she finished last year in 2:34? This became "I was on track to run 1:45 until mile 11." Honey - unless those last two miles took you more than half an hour each, no you weren't.

I don't want to attract her attention by linking to her, so I won't call her out publicly. But I just don't get it. Most of the time she openly buys her bibs on craigslist, which I kind of think is less poor planning and more a ploy to avoid being listed in the race results. A recent race that she did - which she reported as a PR (piecing together her blogs and tweets, you would expect that to be around 2 hours) - was this:

I edited out her name. Please note that the results do include a 17-minute rest room break that she says shouldn't count toward her finishing time. So... I guess it was actually a 2:49? Another race a week later she said was a 2:14, and not a PR. But...

What's wrong with just being you? What's wrong with celebrating the achievement of running a marathon or a half marathon?* Why must you be ashamed and - worse - lie about it?

Let me pass on to you a piece of advice my dad has given me before every marathon I've ever run: "Tracy," he says, "You're not going to win." And you know what? Every race, he's been right. So why lie?

I'm not judging you based on your time. However, I am judging you based on how you report your race. Own your performance. It's yours.**

And now, because they crawled into my brain almost a week ago and won't leave, I present to you the Band Perry:



*And if you know me, you know I'm conflicted on this myself. While I am most absolutely certainly NOT in the "there are real runners and then there are casual runners camp," and while I myself am slow,  I do get a little frustrated sometimes by the whole OMG YOU DID IT YOU ARE A HALFATHONER DOESN'T MATTER IF IT TOOK YOU FOUR HOURS!!! attitude.
**I've actually had this post sitting in my drafts for over six months, debating whether or not to post it. I can be a bitchy person sometimes, but it's not really in my nature to publicly direct it at a single target. I feel a little uncomfortable about it, but I actually truly do want to understand the motivation that causes someone to exaggerate their own performances. AND YES I KNOW THE ANSWER IS JUST FOR ME TO STOP READING BLOGS THAT MAKE ME ANNOYED.