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Comment by chatmasta | Hacker News Reader

You would care if you ran faster to begin with. But if you're running mostly recreationally, especially if you took it up without a competitive racing background, then I can appreciate why you wouldn't care about pace.

I was a competitive runner in college and it's actually the reason I won't run a marathon now. I got so burned out from that career that now I just run without a watch for fun, to de-stress. If I were to run a marathon I'd want to "do it properly" and not just finish it, and that would be way too stressful for me. Even now, when I run an annual turkey trot 5k, I can't help but race the people around me and go as fast as I can despite being terribly out of shape...

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FWIW, this kind of comparison can become even more discouraging as you age. At 58, I'm pretty sure most of my PRs are behind me. The amount of training I'd have to do to get back down to my peak numbers is way more than I'm actually willing to do, and there's a high likelihood that such a high work rate would end in injury instead of success. Instead, I track how each run stacks up against others within some time period - a year, two years, five. A "two-year PR" feels pretty good. A "five-year PR" would be awesome, even if it's short of my all-time PR. I wish Garmin or Strava or whatever would support this kind of thing better.

I was competitive in a different sport in college and burned out. I couldn't bear to watch it on TV, Olympics etc. It took me nearly 10 years to start enjoying it again but now I love to practice with the muscle memory I still have when I get the chance.

I'm similar and have been struggling with this for a while. I ran a lot when I was younger and competed, recently got back into it and ran a marathon "properly", it went well but I got a bit fixated on the time and the whole experience was kinda stressful tbh.

I can't seem to just enjoy activities for what they are in the moment. I quickly start setting goals and being competitive. I'm also into bouldering, been doing that years but when I go to the gym I often find myself competing with others in my head (perhaps sub-consciously seeing them as a threat), I do my best not to show it but it's quite frustrating.

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