Dear diary,
Today was a big day. I got to go for a run with two-time Olympian Alan Culpepper, and I met Scott Jurek, America's leading ultrarunner.
During the run with Alan and while talking with Scott, I was impressed by four things:
1. When Olympians run, their feet make no sound. Amazing. Try it sometime. Impossible.
2. Scott Jurek is a very tall man, surprisingly tall for a guy who regularly runs 100 miles at once.
3. People who run a lot, and I mean a lot, run with extremely consistent pacing.
4. Alan Culpepper's slowest workout pace is my 5K race pace.
Alan is now a coworker in the Boulder office of Competitor Group. Scott moved to Boulder to train for the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, a ridiculously hard ultramarathon, and he'd stopped by the office for a quick photo shoot. Over the past several years, I'd corresponded over email with both men, asking for their endorsement of several of our running and nutrition books. Fortunately, they liked all the books I sent them and both were gracious and generous with their support.
After today's run and run-in, it struck me that elite athletes tend to be really... nice! Sure, some athletes will blow you off, but most of the elites I've met in person (Alan, Scott, Chris Carmichael, Erin Mirabella, Tim Johnson, Joe Parkin, Karl Menzies, Bob Mionske, Michael Barry, Mark Plaatjes, Craig Alexander) have really been quite nice. Like nicer than the average person you might meet at a friend's dinner party. The athletes I've met have been nicer even than non-athlete sports professionals, though most I've met have been quite cordial as well.
How is that that such driven, singularly focused people are so nice? They're on top of the world, paid to do what they love, adored by fans. Athletes come and go, and they have to make the best of their 15 minutes. The pond of endurance sports is not a big one, so athletes rely on their sponsors, their popularity with fans, and on their performances. Sure, anyone can keep up a cordial act for the few minutes it takes to meet someone. Sure, I meet athletes under pretty good circumstances.
Yet not all of them have been nice. I think I know why: all the elites I've found rude have been removed from the height of their greatness, either by time or performance. Even after paying them large sums of money to appear at events, I was barely acknowledged by two cyclists who haven't ridden professionally in 30 years. A decade after the height of his career, I was ignored by one of the world's best ski racers despite holding a copy of the first American edition of his biography in my hand. Some former elite cyclists in Boulder have asked me rather brusquely for donations to their causes, despite any real connection to them.
These rude elites are not washed-up has-beens. All have found some way to spin their athletic success into comfortable careers. So why the rudeness?
Elite sports are the domain of the young. Having found success at a young age, untempered by the wisdom gained in failure, elites flame out of their sports before they are prepared to leave. As Joe Parkin has said, most cyclists don't retire. Most don't even know which race will be their last. Beaten and exhausted, they just quit. Most of us need to work for decades to find success. To have that pyramid turned upside down, to find success early and lose it so soon, to become a usual person after having been special, that must be a rude awakening.
What does it take to retire with civility intact?
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