A little more than a week ago I was racing in one of the most anticipated races in Croatia - the night 10K race in Zagreb.

Over the last few years the race sold out in record time. This year (I think) all 2700 spots were snatched in 90-ish minutes!!!

This was my 3rd time here and I absolutely love it! You are running through the town center during the night and a lot of locals and tourists along with thousands of people around you give you such a boost in energy that you can’t do anything but smile for the entire race :)

While I was reviewing images from the race something caught my attention - again.

Let’s check out a few of the images.

Can you find the similarity? No?

Check out these images

I think it’s pretty clear now.

The second group has people celebrating their finish. They are (somewhat) happy to reach the finish line and enjoy their accomplishment. The first group was only focused on hitting that stupid STOP button on their watches and ignored the best part of the race.

Finishing a race should be the pinnacle of your training. Don’t forget the fact that you trained for months to finish a race. If you stop your time 3-4-5 seconds sooner or later won’t make a difference but it will give you so much more to remember. People around the finish line are always pumped with energy and once you cross the finish line you want to do it all over again right then and there.

Don’t be a slave to your watch because your finishing time is just one small part of what makes a great race. The atmosphere, friends on the side-lines firing you up, fighting with yourself to push a little harder, appreciating the volunteers who go out of their way to help you in the race and so much more should take precedence.

Even if you are at the pointy end of your group, stopping the time a few seconds later won’t make a difference. The race has also official results which you can review and (usually) get a GUN (time the race officially started) and CHIP (the time you crossed the start line) time so that there will never be a chance to miss your actual time and correct it in your logs.

This isn’t a really informative post - it wasn’t really intended to be. I just wanted to make the case for enjoying sport more for the sake of it and not something we can show off on Strava or some other fitness sites.

Since I don’t want to end on a downer, I’ll leave you with the official race video to get you fired up for next year!