Since I graduated from college in May, I’ve been working days as a substitute teacher. After school, I help coach a high school level cross country team. I’m not paid for it, so I can’t officially call myself an assistant coach. I do, however, do all the stuff that’s expected of one. I clear courses, time during races, pace on difficult runs, and fill in for the coach when he’s not around. I have a great group of kids and it’s been fun, but not too challenging.

Yesterday I experienced my first real test.

I was timing the first mile of my racers’ 5k. The mile mark was right before a shady copse, which then led out into roads. It was under these trees that I had stationed myself. I was shouting out splits and encouragement, and waiting for the last runner to pass by. After they all passed, I was to follow and take care of any breakdowns (which happen an awful lot at the high school level). One breakdown, however, came directly to me.

One of our girls fell right after the mile. It wasn’t out of clumsiness, though. She cried out that she couldn’t see. When I crouched down beside her, she was reeling, and seeing double. Her vision had turned purple and black and then she, understandably, went down.

She was embarrassed for dropping out of the race, but I can’t blame her. It must have been scary as hell to lose her vision. Even I was a little spooked by her description. Being the best damn volunteer assistant coach I could be, I stayed with her, sent someone to get water, and called the trainer.

The trainer arrived and, after questioning her, came to the conclusion that she had bonked. The solution was simple enough– We grabbed some soft pretzels and some bottles of Gatorade and we forced her to cram them in.

So what is to be learned from this?

It doesn’t take a marathon distance or superhuman effort to bonk. The term brings to mind images of Chris Legh in an Ironman. It makes us think of ultras and marathons and triathlons. But bonking can happen to unprepared runners even over short distances. It can happen in a casual 5k, and it can even happen during training.

Chris Legh in 1997; unprepared for a brutal Ironman

So please, please make sure you take in the calories you need… If only so that you don’t scare the crap out of any volunteer assistant helper coach-type guys.

I got into this argument with some friends recently. Most of us were runners, and most of those vehemently defended their perception of running as a sport.

Others denied it the title for reasons as superficial as its lack of a court, gear, and most tellingly, a ball. All sports have special equipment. And most non-runners would agree that running requires no skill. This latter idea abounds amongst the participants of “real” sports like baseball, football, and soccer. After all, anyone can run, right?

This debate got me thinking, and I came to the conclusion that running is not a sport.

Put down your pitchforks and extinguish your torches. I do not agree that it isn’t a sport for any of the silly reasons above. My argument rests on the fact that sports by definition require competition. And any time running involves competition, it becomes racing. So, while racing is a sport, running is not.

Please don’t get me wrong. Many runners feel compelled to defend running as a sport because they feel the label gives it validity and recognizes its difficulty. After all, many argue that it’s not a sport because they think that it doesn’t require skill or that it isn’t difficult. These are preposterous. I, on the other hand, argue that running is potentially harder than any sport, and that it is so precisely because of the characteristics that distinguish it from that time-honored title.

In any sport, the competition is between you and someone else. Your might against theirs. And there’s always a point where your might proves greater or lesser. At that point you need exert yourself no more. The demands placed on you are limited to your opponent’s abilities.

Wrestling, for example, is a sport that I highly respect (real wrestling, not the WWF crap). It locks its participants in a contest of wills, and it typically involves a long, wearying struggle– things that distance runners can understand. The difference is that it’s over as soon as you prove to be the stronger or weaker competitor.

In serious distance running, however, the demands placed on your are limited to your own abilities. When you run (whether training or racing) to the upmost of your abilities, your only limit is full-body failure.

There is no interpersonal competition in running– we specialize in beating ourselves into the ground. To do that, we need no gear, no ball, no ESPN covers. We don’t even need talent. All we need is to push ourselves harder than the rules, harder than the boundaries allowed by any sport.