Runners, Racers or Stamp Collectors?

When I came into the sport most members of any club were racers - they tried to beat members of other clubs, they tried to beat fellow club members, they tried to better their own best times. The Edinburgh - Glasgow was the big one and everybody wanted to make the team for that and that meant being better than at least seven other club members. The Dunbartonshire was an article of faith: we HAD to win it and that was at a time when all the other County clubs (Vale of Leven, Garscube and Dumbarton) were all strong with Scottish Internationalists in all clubs. Winning mattered whether it was in the race itself or in the many mini battles further down the field. Mine were aginst folk like Alistair Lawson of Dumbarton, Hughie McErlean of the Vale and David Martin of Garscube.

There were of course some people who were runners rather than racers, guys like Ron Clarke of the Royal Navy who ran for the club. Bruce Tulloh's book 'Three Million Footsteps' was sub titled "The Famous Runner's account of his run across America"' The words the famous runner could get anybody excited. Runners were people, women as well as men, who ran at every opportunity - the ran to work, they ran home again, they trained at the club, they did 'epic' runs like Clydebank to Balloch along the tops of the Kilpatricks and back on the road, etc. Runners did things like 24 hour runs, cross Scotland runs and so on. The main events for runners were the Edinburgh - Glasgow 50+ miler and the Two Bridges 30 miles + events. They were called races but they were really tests of endurance. Similar I suppose to the West Highland Way, the De'il o' the Highlands and so on today. Winning was not really the point, it was more about proving something to yourself and to others. I have tremendous admiration for these people.

Then there are the people who do a wee run when they feel like it, run in the odd unimportant race and treat it like a wee hobby. The sport doesn't matter all that much to them, the club doesn't mean all that much to them. It's a wee hobby like stamp collecting.

The club has always had folk in all three categories - and they all matter to the club. There was this ginger headed guy who was an OK runner but came when it came up his hump, trained well, disappeared at Christmas when most real runners are getting extra miles in during the holidays, and so on BUT.... he was a great fund raiser and a great recruiter. Which category are you? A racer, a runner or a stamp collector?