A New Kind of PR

The other day, I took a bootcamp style workout. A combination of running, including endurance, speedwork, drills and hills, and weight work. It was both strenuous and hard, both challenging and satisfying. At the end of the workout, the class provides participants with a “scorecard” or results - average pace, average heart rate, total distance, total elevation… and also calculates a total output score. Now, I take this style class every single week, and tend to have a general idea of what my output will be, based on how I know I did.

This particular class, I was pushing hard. I took the sprints fast, the hills high, I didn’t relent on the endurance portions, I tested myself with higher weight dumbbells for the strength portions…

I felt like I could be on track for a personal record for my total output.

But when my final scorecard came… I’d fallen short.

Fast forward to right now… the date this post publishes, as timing happens to work out, is July 4th. While that date means different things to different people, and is celebrated (or not) in many different ways, for me, it means participating in a local 5K run. And, yes - I was very deliberate with my wording there.  Many would have said a 5K race. And… yes, it is technically a race - bibs, times taken and collected.. but also… it’s not.

We live in a world that is very results driven. And those results often come in the form of numbers.

Hours in the gym. Miles logged. Calls made. Goals scored. Points earned. Pace. Elevation. Weight. Time.

And, while it is true that these numbers do tell a story, it is also true that the numbers, in and of themselves, are not the full story.

Sometimes those numbers are proof of the effort that you put in. But sometimes those numbers only scratch the surface. And yet other times, those numbers can be wholly misleading.

I get it. In our society, we are always looking for tangible, comparative results. We have been trained to believe that we need numbers to prove our effort. To prove our worth. To prove that we are working as hard or harder as the next person. To prove that we are just as loved, as vital, as important as anyone else.

You see, just because I may not have logged a PR for the bootcamp, the output recorded by the system doesn’t tell the story of that workout. It doesn’t show that I chose heavier weights. That I sustained a faster pace for 30-60 seconds longer than the week before. It doesn’t show that I’d fought through a whole host of “I don’t want to” excuses and doubts when my alarm went off that morning or that I probably was a little dehydrated to begin with.

You see, a 5K on July 4th is almost guaranteed to be hot and humid. Crowded and full of chaos.

But these classes, these runs and races… I have come to learn that they are not about the numbers.

Not about any PR. 

They are about what the day brings.

They are about finding the joy and personal accomplishment outside of the numbers. 

They are about incremental growth.

They are about showing up.

They are about discovering what challenges arise in each situation and circumstance and knowing that I am strong enough to meet them, even if they aren’t the challenges I was expecting.

So while I may not hit the highest output on my next bootcamp, I am already up for the challenge.

While I may not run my fastest 5K today, I am already proud of my results.

Because my personal best, my PR, is not a number. And neither am I.