I have one burning race question that I cannot, and have not been able to answer.
I must admit that I’ve now run my fair share of races.
I’ve read all of the buff magazines, visited all of the online running, biking, swimming and even triathlon forums, read way too many books, consulted the internet, and even asked some of the most famous names in endurance sports this one simple question, but alas to no satisfactory avail.
So now I humbly throw myself upon your collective wisdom.
What do you say to somebody to wish them luck right before a race?
You know, you’re standing in the early morning chill of your fourth bathroom line, you meet that new race buddy, and right before the gun sounds you say what to them exactly?
Or let me put it another way. You have a friend, wife, hubby, or child racing and you want to inspire them with some appropriate words of pre-race wisdom…so what do you say as they head for the start line.
It obviously can't be long winded since you've probably already had that conversation at the pre-race pasta feed. It just needs to be short, to the point, and hopefully heartfelt.
Here are some examples that I’ve considered and frankly eliminated from my lexicon of pre-race sayings.
Theatrical saying
For obvious reason the old stage standby “break a leg” does not work. In fact break a leg is possibly one of the worst things you could say to a newbie athlete as they prepare for their first marathon. For indeed they just might actually “break a leg” and that would certain make for some awkward post race conversation.
You know like this possible conversation in the medical tent:
“So Roman I was almost at mile 20 when your pre-race words of wisdom came back to me…and that’s when I tripped over the curb and you know….”
Fighting Sayings
Often times at moments of greatness one turns to the military for inspiration. We often equate battle with sports and sports with battle, so why not use military terms and sayings such as…“Carpe Diem” or the English version “Seize the Day.” Unfortunately while this may have rung true as the Greeks prepared to do battle a few thousand years ago, today it just sounds a bit pretentious and nerdy.
Here’s a short list of other pseudo fighting sayings that just don’t seem to cut it on race mornings:
Tear up the course
Crush ‘em
Kill it
Put a knife it in
Conquer it
Fight Fight Fight
Take it to ‘em
Stick to your guns
And so on
Commercial Sayings
Perhaps it would be helpful to draw inspiration from the smart Madison Avenue advertising types in New York?
“Just Do It!” sounds like you are promoting the new Nike Air Penguin.
“Impossible is Nothing,” brought to you by Adidas is just plain weird.
“Anything is Possible,” as coined by Ironman is a bit scary.
Yes you too could drown and be eaten by sharks while trying to swim 2.4 miles in a rough ocean. That is indeed also possible.
“Serious Performance” the current Mizuno motto could be a bit problematic. Image using that saying in the morning as in “Go for some Serious Performance Today Dude,” before your buddy pulls a seven hour marathon out of his or her hat.“The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection” I believe is the Lexus slogan and now, as you can tell, I’m just grasping at straws.
Youthful Sayings
So how about we turn back the clock a few years, OK more than a few years for me, and we consider those youthful saying so near and dear to our parents.
Go get ‘em Tiger
Show me how it’s done
I’m proud of you no matter what happens or the converse…
Make me proud
You’ve got it in you
Just have fun
Winning isn’t everything, or as heard and understood by your child…
Winning is everything
And of course the most common and popular one…
Just do your best
Unfortunately these all sound like a recipe for failure and that’s why none of us really liked them as kids. Which of course begs the question as to why we use them now on our own kids, but that’s a topic for another day.
Inspirational Saying
So here we are almost at the end of this plea for help and I have to admit that after several dozen ideas I’m no closer to a good answer.
Which leaves the inspiration sayings that can often be confused with those banal and cliché posters that too many companies like to hang in the lunchroom like:
There is no I in team but…
There is a Tri in Triumph
Climb your mountain
Soar to new heights
Luck is just the residue of hard work
I think you get the picture. You may have stared at the same posters over many a sub sandwich. And the poster obviously motivated you to ponder why you are stuck working for a company that believes it can motivate you with a .00 poster stuck on the wall.
So that is it. I’m fresh out of ideas.
I leave it to you to please help me come up with something that we can all use at our next race, because we certainly all need to agree on something to make those pre-race conversations a bit less awkward. If the theater folks can all agree on a pre-show saying, so can we.
I think you'll agree that it needs to be sincere and heartfelt, without sounding like any of the painful words from above.
Just for the record, the best pre-race saying I can come up with is “Good Luck” and perhaps throw in a quick “Be Safe and Have Fun!”
But I know we can, indeed we must for the sake of our sport, do better.
I'm all ears!