Running imposter syndrome is lying to you. Stop believing it.
I ran my first marathon after a year of running. Sort of running. I’d done the Great North Run with vague training, run sporadically over the year, and had no real clue what I was doing. No coach. No run group. Just a Runner’s World subscription.
When I started my 16-week training plan, I couldn’t run 3 miles. That was the shortest distance on my plan. I set a goal of running the whole way but had no time expectation. That’s what I did. I set a goal, I stuck to my training plan, and I was consistent.
Was I slow? I felt slow. Lots of people overtook me. Did it matter? Not at all.
I wish I’d known it didn’t matter when I started my training. Comparing myself to other runners when I don’t know the basis for comparison, I always came up short. Still do. When I started a training diary and signed up for some regular events, things changed. I could see my progress over a month, 6 months, a year. From event to event. The comparison was meaningful and painted a completely different picture.
I hear the same doubts all the time when I coach: I’m too slow. I’m not a real runner. I could never run 10K. All nonsense. All unfair comparison.
When you add some logic to your comparison, things start to make more sense. Here are 7 factors that make comparing yourself to other runners completely pointless – but powerful when you track your progress instead.
1. Your pace or mine?
How long have you been running? 3 months? 3 years? The person you’re comparing yourself to? Do you even know how long they’ve been running?
You’re 3 months in. They’ve been running for 3 years. You’re not supposed to be at the same pace. Stop pretending you should be.
2. Start at the beginning
You’ve just started running. Six weeks ago, you couldn’t run for 2 minutes without stopping. Now you’re running 10. That’s 5x longer. Incredible progress.
The fact that someone else ran a marathon last week? Completely irrelevant. They didn’t start six weeks ago. You did.
3. Weather isn’t the same as fitness
I run the same route a lot. Same 5K loop. Yesterday I had a headwind the entire way back and it was hard. Today? Tail wind, felt easy, ran faster. Same route. Different wind. Not an equal comparison.
Last week I ran a different loop. Hilly. Brutal. Was I slow? Yes. Compared with this week’s tail wind, flatter route. Is there any value in that comparison. None. The comparison comes in running the hilly loop again next week, and the one after, and the one after that. Enough loops to flatten out the impact of the weather.
4. Life wrecks runs (that’s normal)
How much sleep you had and the quality of it, how stressed you feel, how busy you are at work or in other areas of your life, what you ate, when you partied, what other activities you did, and, for women, the time of the month. These factors have the biggest impact on your run.
Some of these factors can be controlled – by that I mean you make a conscious choice – some can’t. They all affect your running performance to varying degrees. Don’t underestimate them.
Today I had a terrible run. Slow, heavy, tired. I blamed my fitness. I’ve lost so much fitness through injury. Then I realised, I’ve had about 5 hours sleep for the last 4 nights. And, last night, I went to bed 2 hours later than usual. My eating habits haven’t been great all week and last night I went out for dinner. Was my crap run the result of fitness? Or was it unwise choices?
5. You don’t know their fitness history
Fitness history is also a factor, and you generally won’t know someone else’s fitness history. Did you know I was a swimmer and swam competitively through my teens? Unlikely. Is it a factor. Possibly. It was a long time ago, but it does mean I have some understanding of how to train, you may not.
I do CrossFit so I’m building strength, this has a huge impact on my running ability. Do you see me in the CrossFit gym? No. So you attribute my latest PB to something that you don’t have. But that’s not true.
6. Recovery isn’t the same at 25 and 45
Age. You recover faster at 25 than at 45. Simple biology. Nothing you can do about it.
Sleep. You got 5 hours broken sleep, not 8 hours unbroken. You’re not the same person. You haven’t had the same recovery.
Injury. The bane of my life right now. Coming back from a left leg injury, my right leg is sore. You may not be aware of it, but injuries leave their mark on your body. I give myself extra recovery time between runs coming back from injury. This means I might have to run a shorter distance than I’d planned some days.
Nutrition, type of training and training load also affect how quickly you recover. So, comparing your recovery needs to someone whose life looks completely different? Not a fair comparison.
7. My goals, not yours
I run every day. No days off. It’s called a run streak. There’s a lot of debate about whether you should or shouldn’t. I don’t care. But I do realise it’s not for everyone.
I’m on my third streak. The first two ended because I got the recovery and training wrong. Totally wrong.
I also know the trade off – performance over consistency. That’s a choice I make. Comparing myself with a non-streaker? Pointless.
Your race. Your pace
When I got over myself and stopped worrying about what everyone else was doing, I started to enjoy running. I bought training diaries and became obsessed with data. Also unproductive.
Now I track less and reflect more. Same thing happens with work. I obsess over being ‘productive’ without considering how I’m actually feeling. I put pressure on myself based on what I think I should be doing. To-do lists for my to-do lists. It’s exhausting.
What makes it worse? I constantly compare myself with other people. And, stupidly, those ‘other people’ are on social media. I’ve never met them. I don’t know them. All I see is what they want me to see. It’s exhausting never measuring up to something that probably doesn’t exist.
So, what am I doing about it? Same approach as running. I track my progress – what I got done this week v last week. I’m objective about what’s really going on – sleep, stress, workload. I’ve stopped comparing my day to someone else’s highlight reel. What a relief.
What can you take from life to running (or your sport of choice) and what does running teach you about life? That’s a comparison that’s worth making.
Not sure where to start? Book a free discovery call. We’ll talk about what’s happening in your world and how small shifts could make a difference.
