I was an elite runner for exactly five days. In those five days, I learned that being an elite has surprisingly little to do with leg speed. It's about attitude, about not drawing lines--neither ruling out possibilities nor dividing between levels of runners. And this sent me on a quest to understand that attitude, to adopt it, and to make it my own.

To say I earned such a privileged distinction, however short-lived it might have been, would be at once true and false.

With a marathon PR of 2:49 and a 5K of 16:26, my times are pedestrian by professional standards. But I'm at the upper end of the amateur ranks, and I work hard to hold my position there. I do twice-weekly speed sessions and average 50–80 miles per week.

Still, even among competitive amateurs, I'm decidedly second tier. I'm always seeded in the first corral at New York City races that draw thousands, but I never expect to win. Like most runners I know, I measure my success by age-group awards and PRs, not by breaking the tape.

I have won a few smaller races, though--local 5Ks, mostly, with fields no larger than a few hundred. And in September 2010, I entered such a race in Brooklyn, where I live, whose top prize seemed too good to be true: an all-expenses-paid trip to race the Modesto Carrion Half Marathon in Juncos, Puerto Rico, that November. It was a hot, late-summer evening, and I heaved my way to a 17:07--not my best, but not very far off, either. Plenty of local runners could have beaten me, had they shown up. But they didn't, and two months later, on Thanksgiving Day, I boarded a flight to San Juan.

I expected a vacation; what I got was a glimpse at life as a professional runner. Of the 12 people invited to the race, I was the sole American, and by far the slowest. The rest were Kenyan, Ethiopian and Moroccan: eight men, who would also run the half marathon, and three women, who would run a 10K. We slept four to a room in a modest seaside inn, just steps from the ocean, and from the moment we arrived late Thursday night, we did practically everything as a group.

Early Friday morning, my roommates woke me for a run along the beach. Outside, two other runners I hadn't yet met were waiting for us--Julius Keter, whom I recognized from a photo I'd seen in a running magazine, and another Kenyan who looked just as lithe, like any elite African you'd see at the front of any major road race in the world.

Until then, my contact with elite African runners had been limited to the moments before a race, when I would quietly watch them from my crowded corral as they took their places at the front of the field, their loose, feather-light limbs belying the power coiled tightly inside. They always seemed untouchable, like running royalty. Now I was about to do a training run with five of them. I played it cool, but my nerves were rattling. I might have won a little 5K in Brooklyn, but these guys were the real thing. I had no business being there.

We made our introductions and started to jog, very slowly. I followed their lead as they gradually--almost imperceptibly--cranked up the cadence until we were dodging fallen coconuts and feral dogs at a 5:30 clip. I could hang with the pack, but the divide was clear: Their moderate effort was my threshold.

After about 50 minutes, I dropped out of the run. I'd never done such a hard workout just two days before a half marathon, and I didn't want to push it. Nor did I want them to see me struggling to keep up. They'd realize I wasn't a real elite soon enough; no need to embarrass myself in a workout.

But I did worry that I'd lose their respect. In New York, whenever I've dropped out or just slowed down, people have assumed that I went out too hard, that I couldn't handle the pace, or that I was battling an injury. There is a tacit pressure to keep up, to prove you can hack it--even when your group is running a pace that's unrealistically fast for the workout prescribed.

Although we barely spoke during the run, I could tell these runners trained differently from my cohort back home. For nearly 9 miles we ran as a group--no one took the lead, no one person pushed the pace. It seemed to happen organically. Even when I peeled off, no one said a word. They just kept going, and I returned to my room. When they got back, we simply changed our clothes and went to breakfast.

I realized then that I really was in a different league, but not in the way I'd thought. The difference was in psychology.

We bided our downtime--and there was a lot of it--with conversation. I learned that one of my roommates, Mohamed Fadil, had recently beaten Ryan Hall in a half marathon, and that another, Girma Tolla, had run in the 2000 Olympics for Ethiopia, finishing 11th in the 10,000m. I learned that Julius Keter was Kip Keino's grandson. And I learned that all of the men had run half marathons in 61 or 62 minutes; my PR was then 1:18:39.

But they treated me as an equal. We discussed training, diet, and their lives in cities across the U.S. and Mexico, where they lived on athletic visas. One had a 2-month-old daughter in Ethiopia he had yet to see. Another said that if she won enough races that year, she'd be able to go home to Kenya and see her family; if not, she'd be stuck in Mexico until she could raise enough prize money for a plane ticket. We grew so familiar in those few days that I almost started to think of myself as an elite--their encouragement helping to feed that delusion.

One was convinced that I'd finish in the top 10 in Sunday's race. Another asked me about my sponsorships, and I quickly informed him that I was not a professional runner. "You look like a professional," he replied. And after I shared my PRs with Mohamed, he didn't shrug me off, as I'd feared. To the contrary, he said he thought that very little stood between me and much faster times, suggesting that I increase my 5 × 1K workouts to 15 × 1K. "I've seen you run," he said. "You just need to make a few adjustments in your training."

By Sunday, I felt more mentally prepared than I'd ever been before a race. The other eight men resolved to "hold back" and take the first 5K in 14:40, almost 2 minutes faster than my PR in that distance. I knew I couldn't keep up with them, but I figured I could manage my 10K pace of 5:40. It's mental, I told myself. I simply need to believe I can do it.

I was wrong. After a 4-mile descent down a mountain, which I covered easily in 22 minutes, the course leveled off briefly before climbing a series of hills that could bring some cars to a sputtering stop. Severe cramping in the hills forced me to walk, and I slogged through the last 5 miles, devastated, embarrassed, cursing myself for going out so hard. This was the price of my hubris.

But when I hit the 400m track that marked the end of the race, I heard someone shouting my name--it was Julius, who had won for the second year in a row, cheering me on. Soon the other elites joined him, and I broke into an anaerobic kick, rounded the track, and crossed the line in 1:35 flat--my slowest half marathon ever.

Julius would take home $3,000 for the win, the others a fraction of that amount, if anything. But there was no ill will. Quite the opposite: That night at the awards ceremony, an elegant dinner with the mayor of Juncos, we all celebrated (and commiserated) as friends.

"The hardest course I've ever seen," said Arap Towett, a 26-year-old from Kenya, shaking his head in disbelief. "It just kept going up, and up, and up." Mohamed ran 8 minutes off his PR. Girma had to wrap his big toe in gauze to stop it from bleeding. They all finished between 1:05 and 1:12, far slower than they're capable of running. And yet, I felt compelled to insist that my 1:35 was an anomaly, that I'd run 1:18 more than once and that I'd never before had to walk in a half marathon.

But to them, none of that mattered. Our times were numbers, nothing more. And no one seemed disappointed--with themselves or with me. We talked more about future races than the one we just ran.

Hometown Reflections

As I flew home the Tuesday after the race, I couldn't help comparing the magnanimity of those 11 elite runners with the attitudes I've encountered in the running scene I inhabit, where a sharp distinction is made between a 1:20 half marathoner and someone who runs 1:15; where social cliques are formed around pace groups; where I've seen people throw fits or just fall into a glum silence after a "bad" race.

I thought about the times I'd been snubbed by faster runners and wondered if I'd ever snubbed slower ones. I thought about training and how to achieve the "much faster times" that Mohamed believed were in me.

But mostly, I thought about the confidence I'd gained after just five days with 11 elite runners, most of whom were Kenyan, and I returned home with one question: As amateur competitive runners, we often try to adopt their training methods--why not their attitudes, too?

To answer that, we have to understand not only where their attitudes originate, but also our own. According to Toby Tan-ser, the former elite runner from Iceland and author of two books about training in Kenya, the robust running scene in that country is bolstered by a culture that prizes community and friendship over personal gain. There is even a Swahili word for the concept: harambee, to "pull together." It runs across the bottom of Kenya's national coat of arms.

This ethos translates to their athletics, he says, inspiring hundreds--if not thousands--of young runners to join the fray each year. "People will look at other runners and say, 'That guy is the same height as me, the same weight as me, comes from the same town as me. Maybe I can do it, too,'" he says. "So you have this group of positive-thinking people, and positivity spawns more positivity--people encouraging you to do more."

From what I saw in Puerto Rico, that mentality extends beyond the Rift Valley to Ethiopia and Morocco, and no doubt to other countries outside of Africa, too--including the United States. I've met American elites who are just as humble, and just as supportive, as the Africans I met in Puerto Rico.

The competitive running scene is different. Most of us will never live in a training camp, or even the semblance of one, as I did in 2010. Nor do we share a common lifestyle or set of values. We come together for workouts and races and then go back to our lives. And we know that no matter how fast we are, there is always somebody faster.

But this doesn't stop some runners from becoming jerks: the teammate who only talks to others who can match his pace; the guy who chats you up at races only to brag about his times; the training partner who makes obliquely insulting comments under the guise of friendly counsel. Nor does it stop us from biting back, or worse, allowing such remarks to influence our self-esteem. And this can turn us not only against other runners, but also against ourselves.

In July 2010, I blew up in the San Francisco Marathon and crawled my way to a 3:13 finish, about 30 minutes slower than my goal. When I got back to New York, another runner whose race times at shorter distances were nearly identical to mine casually suggested that I focus on ultras instead. His reasoning: "Those guys aren't very fast."

The remark pooled in my brain and took on the quality of molten lead, its heat coursing slowly inside my skull. I swallowed the urge to remind him that my PRs were all faster than his, if only slightly, but I dwelled on that comment for months. What may have boosted his ego only bruised my own.

Sigmund Freud believed that rivalries (and even wars) develop between highly similar groups or individuals because they have a need to distinguish themselves by the smallest degree, and then to insist, militantly, on the importance of that distinction. Think: India and Pakistan, Spain and Portugal, any two American colleges in close proximity. He called it the "narcissism of minor differences," and the theory applies directly to situations like the one I just described. Why was that runner so cavalier about suggesting that I was "slow," and why did I feel so compelled to point out the mere seconds that differentiated our times?

Simple. Minor distinctions are the stuff of amateur-competitive running: age-graded percentiles, corral assignments, a sub-3:00 versus a sub-3:15 marathon. They give us something to strive for and provide a measure for our progress. We earn those distinctions. But there's a fine line between pride and arrogance, between recognizing a distinction and insisting that it matters.

It's said that the politics in academia can be so vicious precisely because the stakes are so low. Swap pride for politics, and the adage transfers well to amateur athletics. That most of us aren't running for fame or fortune, but essentially as a hobby, does little to mitigate this narcissistic impulse. Indeed, it may help fuel it. With nothing on the line, what motivates us to run if not our egos?

Good Ego, Bad Ego

Ego has become a pejorative in our world, synonymous with vanity and self-absorption, but without the ego we'd have no drive, no desire to excel.

It enables us to push against our own bodily limits and dig into our reserves for that last little drop of determination that powers us up another hill, through one more mile at the end of a race, across yet another finish line. And we strive even when there are many other runners ahead of us. For us, running competitively is not about winning the race, but testing our mettle, seeing what we're made of. It's a negotiation--and sometimes a battle--with our own egos.

And that's good. We need to embrace that ego. It's the inflated ego that's earned the word a bad rap. That ego allows us to think we're more serious than those who finish behind us. It equates speed with self-worth. And it may be more common than we'd like to believe.

According to April Henning, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the City University of New York, the notion of "exceptionalism" pervades the nonelite competitive running scene in New York City. "There's this bootstraps mentality, this idea that 'If everyone was working as hard as me, then they'd be as successful as me,'" she says.

Henning, who is studying perspectives among nonelite competitive runners on health and ethics in the sport, interviewed 30 local runners for her dissertation (full disclosure: I was one of them). She says that many of them cling to what she calls the "myth of a level playing field." They see nothing wrong with a runner having certain advantages as long as they have the same advantages--private coaching, for example, or the best gear. But, "As soon as they perceive the scales tipping in someone else's favor," she says, "they start griping about an unfair playing field. There's a real tension between what they see as fair and what's not."

The griping is only directed up, however, toward those who are faster than they are (excluding elite runners, who are perceived as existing on a different plane altogether). Toward those who are slower, Henning says that many competitive runners are merely dismissive. "There's this idea that when you're in the front of the pack you deserve something [attention, respect] that people in the back of the pack may not deserve," she says, "that it's really about 'us and our experience, up here at the front.'"

This self-serving view, she suggests, may have nothing to do with athletics, but rather with socioeconomics.

"Most of the runners I talked to seem not to look past their own communities," Henning says, noting that the majority of her subjects were white, middle-or upper-middle-class, and in their late 20s to mid-40s. "They don't seem to be conscious of what's outside their immediate running experience. They don't want to consider people who may work two or three jobs or who don't have access to the same advantages that they do."

Not only does this mean writing off slower runners as less serious, it can also enable delusions of grandeur among certain top amateurs. "They know they're never going to run with Meb or Abdi," Henning says of such runners, "but in their own minds, they are elites."

Henning adds that coaches and social interactions may tacitly reinforce this mentality. "There's this idea that the best athletes are also the most interesting people," she says, and that they work harder than everyone else, whether it's true or not. As Henning puts it: "The PR for the top guy gets way more pats on the back than the new guy's."

And this can have deleterious effects on runners of all levels. After all, the corollary to an inflated ego is a starved one. I once knew an excellent runner who was so devastated by a "bad" race that he all but disappeared from the competitive scene. And Henning, a competitive runner herself, says that she nearly gave up the sport when she was a teenager who hadn't yet discovered her potential. "I felt invisible as a middle-of-the-packer," she says.

Such examples may be extreme, but who of us hasn't considered how our peers will react to our performance in a given race, whether good or bad? And in those moments, whom are we ultimately running for? The sport is difficult enough as it is; doing it for anyone but ourselves makes it unsustainable.

The runners I met in Puerto Rico never suggested that I should run faster, that I wasn't serious enough, or that I had to increase my volume. My 80-mile weeks were more than sufficient, Mohamed assured me, contrary to what some of my slightly faster peers have insisted over the years. But they did believe I could run faster, if I wanted to, and they were happy to help me get there. One even invited me to train with him in Des Moines, Iowa, where he lived.

The Takeaway

Since that trip in 2010, I have run PRs in the 5K, 15K and half marathon--thanks largely to what I learned from those African runners.

They taught me to relax, to be more methodical in my training, and always, to run my own race. I now log most of my miles far slower than I used to, and when things feel right, I push harder than I ever did before.

But there's a big difference between pushing yourself to be your best and pushing yourself into the ground. Before 2010, I'd spent years chasing the ever-elusive goal of a sub-2:40 marathon. After nearly 20 attempts, I was getting burned out, beginning to resent training for a distance that never agreed with me. And yet, I felt like I had to keep trying, like I had something to prove.

I have since shifted my focus to shorter distances, from the half marathon down, and have felt my love of running revitalized. I realize now that I have no one to impress, least of all those amateur runners who are faster than me. And when they snub me, I just think of the real elites, who could smoke them without breaking a sweat.

At a 5K in New York last spring, I saw Girma at the start, and he flashed a huge smile when he saw me. We did a short warm-up together, catching up as we ran. After the race, I approached a few acquaintances who finished about a minute ahead of me, in the high 15s, and got a much icier reception, but I didn't care.

I'm still in touch with several of the elites I met in Puerto Rico, and a few have become close friends. Last July, two of them met me in Davenport, Iowa, for the Bix 7, a challenging 7-mile road race that each year draws a world-class field.

While visiting them in the elite-housing dorm the day before the race, I met a 30-year-old Moroccan named Aissa Dghoughi, who trains in Oregon and had recently run a 14:09 5K at altitude.

He asked me if I was in the elite field, too. "No," I said. "I'm competitive, but far from elite." I told him I run low 35 for the 10K and mid-16 for the 5K, and he smiled. "Then you know," he said, one runner talking to another. "It's not easy."

4 Keys to An Elite Attitude

1 - Don't treat training runs or race times as indications of your self-worth

2 - Value every runner's efforts, success and potential

3 - Don't beat yourself up in training or in evaluating your workouts and racing

4 - Recognize that your running ability is a result of many factors, not just how serious you are or how hard you push

David Aim is a journalist and professor in New York City. He began running on his 23rd birthday to combat post-college malaise and never stopped. More than 14 years later, he credits the sport with keeping him sane through two recessions, graduate school, and the stress of a hectic life in New York. He's run 20 marathons, though his true love is the 5K.

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