Hopefully the title didn’t scare you away, for this edition of Thinking Out Loud!  This isn’t a blog about political parties, or an opinion piece trying to sway you one way or the other, no need to worry about disagreeing on policy.  Rather I thought of this blog as I have watched Presidential candidates ‘suspend’ their campaigns.

It has happened on both sides, democrat and republican, once a candidate realizes they do not have a chance at winning they throw in the towel.  After spending millions of dollars and lots of time prepping, they decide to call it quits.  The saying ‘when the going gets tough, they tough get going’.  Apparently that doesn’t apply when you are running for the most powerful office in the World.  Perhaps those that drop out aren’t that tough and we should be happy they do not stay in the race.  Some run for office knowing they are going to drop out, they do it to get name recognition to run again in the future.

By this point I am sure you are saying to yourself, this is a running blog, how does this relate to running?  Imagine if we applied the same thought processes to running.  I would venture to say most of us have to pay for our race entries and then spend lots of hours and miles training.  On race day (most recreational runners) don’t plan on winning the race.  With that presidential campaign mindset we should probably quit running after a quarter mile and ‘suspend’ our participation in the race.  Yeah, that sounds weird, it’s called quitting, whether you are running a race or for President it is quitting. (If you get injured or something happens where you can’t finish I’m not calling you a quitter)

My question then, are runners tougher than the men and women who want to be President of the free world?  My unscientific opinion is…yes!  Runners endure hours on the road/trail in preparation for a race, knowing in most cases we aren’t going to win.  We are training to do our best to set a personal record, we have goals in mind.  Even when we don’t meet those we keep on going until we cross the finish line.  We don’t quit when the going gets tough, many runners I know will run through all sorts of adversity, injuries, illness, and of course the dreaded ‘wall’.  Shouldn’t we ask the same of our Presidential candidates, go to the finish line, let all of the voters in each state decide when it is time for your to exit.

When casting your vote for President this election, maybe we should be looking at candidates who have a running background who know how to get through the tough times and come out on the other side a better person.
Perhaps we need a runners guide to Presidential candidates?  
What are your thoughts on the correlation between running races and running for President?  

-Veggie Fueled Runner