The Need for Numbers

When I was a freshman in high school, I nearly quit track and field. I remember going for a five mile tempo run, in the freezing cold of early March, getting dropped by a ton of my teammates and swearing and crying that I was going to hand in my uniform the next day. While I brought my uniform to school the next day, truly content to hand it in, I couldn't muster up quitting the team. That afternoon, I went out and had one of the best runs I can ever remember.

I still wasn't sure distance running was the sport for me until later that spring, when my coach gave me a booklet full of stats, top 50 lists from the state meet. I took it home, looked it over, and immediately started memorizing the names, times, where they went to school, if any of them were still in high school. It was awesome.

You see, numbers drive distance running. A marathon isn't just a marathon, it's 26.2 miles, where hitting certainly mile times is important, and odds are you keep track of the mileage you run each week, look at the top pro's performances and occasionally use a GPS watch just like me. Numbers matter, they keep up focused and we feel like we gain an edge in our own running or in our knowledge for the sport when we have a new set to look at.

Last night I read a great article on how tennis is trying to catch up to the major sports (football, basketball, baseball) in terms of using statistics to help athletes perform better, keeping diehard fans happy and attracting new fans. Thinking it over, distance running as a whole should try and make the same stats push. Often times, all our sport has are numbers.

Read the article, think about how it applies to distance running. What stats could our sport use? What can our sport do to raise it's competitive game in the numbers world?