Learning persepectives of race distances through local landmarks
When talking about running to a non-runner, it helps if you can put the task of running into perspective. Perspective is a way of comparing things from one discipline to another discipline so that a common language is reached. Here in Texas, the temperature is “hot” when it is over 100 degrees and a cold front drops the temperature down into the 80s. A person in the northern part of the country will think of a heat wave as temperatures in the 80s and a cold front drops the temperature into the 40s. I have seen a few Texans wear a light jacket when the temperature drops down into the low 70s or mid-60s. It is all a matter of perspective.
Trying to explain the different distances in races is a language that has most non-runners at an extreme disadvantage. It is hard enough for runners to convert kilometers to miles. A 5K race is 3.1 miles and even if the race is advertised as a 5K distance the course is marked in miles. This is an example of putting the distance in perspective for a runner. Marking a course in kilometers would have the majority of runners wondering how far they have run. It helps if you tell a runner a kilometer is about .62 of a mile. Of course that makes the runner do a little math to determine their pace in a race.
It is easier to tell a non-runner a distance that they can relate to when explaining how far a race is. As an example, a 5K distance is running from City Park turn right on C.M. Allen and on out Aquarena Springs Drive to Thorpe Lane. Turn right on Thorpe Lane and run to Hopkins. Follow Hopkins across the bridge and back to City Park is a close 3.1 miles. An explanation for five miles is to run from City Park out Charles Austin Drive to Hopkins and out to the Holiday Inn. Take the I-35 access road down to the Little League fields and back via C. M. Allen and the bridge across the river back to City Park.
Sometimes it is easier to give the distance to a specific location. From San Marcos to Martindale is about 10 miles. A person that has driven to Martindale can then try to imagine running that far. Try to imagine running out Old Post Road to Kyle and back is just a couple of miles over 20. For a non-runner, that is very difficult to imagine anyone running that far in one day. One friend was trying to explain to a non-runner that a close friend had run a marathon. Telling the person that it is 26.2 miles didn’t register. They then explained that a marathon is like running from San Marcos to Austin. The response was, “My goodness, how many days did it take them to run that far?” That was the perspective the non-runner had of running a marathon.
When the runner mentions that they entered a 10K race, the distance is lost on a non-runner. The distance is 6.2 miles. For a non-runner, explain that from City Park, run out Highway 21 toward Lockhart and run until you see the entrance to Camp Gary (or maybe the City Softball Fields) and back is just over the distance of a 10K (6.5miles). Turning around at the Quail Creek Country Club is closer to a 10K.
For the runner that wants to avoid the heavy traffic of major roads in town or near the I-35 access road, the Country Estates has some easy roads to follow. There are three distances that can be covered for the beginner to the more serious runner. Starting at the swimming pool area the first loop is just roughly one kilometer (.6 miles). The second loop is close to four miles. The big loop around the estate is a nice six miles. Now when the non-runner drives around the Country Estates subdivision they can get a perspective of how far you ran.
Another perspective is between runners that enter a marathon — the slower runner (3:30-4:30 hours) versus the winner that finishes in under 2:30 hours. The slow runner cannot imagine running that fast for 26.2 miles (a pace of around six minutes per mile). The fast runner cannot imagine running for four hours or more. It is just a perspective on how runners view running a marathon.
The same perspective of distance is seen with bike riders. A nice 30-mile trip to Gruene and back is considered an easy ride. For the person driving a car, that distance is a long ride for a bike rider. And for experienced bike riders, a 60-mile ride is just an average ride for them. It just helps people not in the running or biking activity to put the different times and distances into an understanding perspective.
