From Women's Sports + Fitness, August 1997

If you’ve ever raced, you probably divided the field into two groups: those fast women up front, and the rest of us. So if you heard Sarah Kramer saying that she was embarrassed about placing 22nd out of more than 1,000 women at the Azalea Trail Run 10K in late March, you might accuse her of anything from crocodile tears to false modesty to cluelessness.

But in fact, in any sport with a competitive side, there exists a group in that hungry, gray zone between the pros and the rest of us. For lack of a better term, they've been dubbed the subelite. Often the top finishers in local and regional competitions, these women aren’t usually even known, much less feared, by their national-class colleagues. Much as the high schooler who scores 1480 on her SATs knows that the gulf between her and the student who gets a perfect 1600 is qualitatively vaster than the 120-point spread suggests, the subelite athlete knows that no matter how hard she works, there will be others in her chosen pursuit who are at an unreachable level, regardless of how close they appear to be on paper. Put another way, it’s the difference between the getting a second interview and getting the job.

So when Kramer, 36, of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., describes her experience at Azalea Trail, she’s merely voicing the realities that undergird the lives of the subelite in all sports. There’s the optimism based on acute self-knowledge: "I thought I would run in the low 35s this year, because I ran my best, 35:35, there last year, and I felt I was in better shape." Then there’s the potential for an underlying sense of inadequacy: "After I finished in 36:22, I really had to fight these feelings of embarrassment. ‘My God,’ I thought, ‘these women are so far ahead of me’—the winner was under 32:00, and my roommate for the weekend, Debbi Kilpatrick, was two minutes in front." Finally, there’s the faith that transforms what could be jealousy of her national-class competitors into evidence of great things to come: "I can’t say, ‘Well, Debbi has to be so much more talented than me.’ I know how hard she works, so I appreciate what she accomplishes. I ask, ‘What are the ingredients to doing that well?’ I can learn from her, and know that I’m going to keep on improving."

The Good Life
"I’m always juggling things, and believe me, our house looks like it," says Judy Amer, 42, a cusp-o’-the-age-group-cream triathlete from Santa Fe, N.M. For Amer and other subelites, a house that Donna Reed might not approve of is one of the more visible, but least important manifestations of their lifestyle. You see, the subelite usually train as hard and long as the top athletes in a sport, but lack that little bit of genetic luck that would propel them to the next level. This means that they get few of the tangible rewards of being so hardcore, but all of the potential drawbacks—the constant threat of injury, careers that are put on hold, guilt about always being short on time and so on. "Your kids turn to you and say, ‘You like working out more than you like me,’" Amer says. "It’s hard to explain that something you spend a lot of time on doesn’t detract from your love for them."

Sounds like a recipe for a forever frustrating existence. But talk with subelites, and you’ll find a singular ability to put a positive spin on their lives. Jennifer Carter, for example, is a Category 2 road cyclist from Columbia, Md. At age 36, with an 18-month-old baby and a busy veterinary career, she knows that she’s never going to make the leap to being a Category 1 rider, which is the highest level recognized by the United States Cycling Federation. Yet rather than be bitter about this, she compares herself to professional riders and says, "I believe in balance in life. Being a pro just wouldn’t be balance for me. When you’re a Cat 1, you can’t work, you can’t raise a child. The life of a bike racer is really hard—the good women’s races are scattered all over the country, so you’re always traveling. You age real quickly." So what could be cause for dejection becomes motivation, as Carter says, "I always tell myself I can compete with them in the right kinds of races, which, for me, are flat criteriums. My dream is to be able to race with them but not be one of them."

By definition, Liz Bucy is "one of them": the 30-year-old Boulder, Colo. resident is a Category 1 road cyclist and a pro mountain biker. But don’t let that "pro" moniker fool you—it means that Bucy competes in mountain biking’s top group, not that she’s paying the mortgage through her racing. In fact, she exemplifies the Catch-22 conundrum of the subelite life: You’re probably not going to make it to the top in your sport without quitting your job, but how can you justify quitting your job unless you’re already that good? Bucy has set aside her career as a high school French teacher, and relies on her husband and a part-time office job to finance the fact that she can’t currently make a living from sport. But you won’t hear her lamenting this. Instead, she says, "I’m so lucky to be able to do this. I know there’s another level above me, and for now, I get to try to reach it. Long term? My goal is to get strong enough to be one of the two on the Olympic mountain biking team."

Okay, so when Bucy is asked why she works out more hours a week than she works, she can at least trot out the gilded line, "I’m training for the Olympics." But what about Kramer, whose 2:46 marathon puts 15 minutes behind the best in the country? Or what about someone like Louise Kelley? The 33-year-old Rockville, Md. resident has been running for almost 20 years, with bests of 17:04 for 5K and 35:20 for 10K to show for it. Impressive times, yes; knocking on the door of a lucrative shoe contract, no way. What drives her to train hard despite a physical therapy career and a 2-year-old son?

"I feel I can compete at a higher level than what I currently do and did before I had Brian," Kelley says. "I’ve can’t believe that I’ve reached my potential. I believe that I can qualify for a national meet. I’m not going to be able to compete against these people, but I know that at least once, I can get near to them." Doing so will entail taking about 45 seconds off her 5K time. Suffice it to say that there are easier things to accomplish after two decades of training.

In potentially heartbreaking terms, these women's desire is greater than their talent. The fact is, they're probably never going to reach the promised land. So why aren’t they bitter? Simply put, because they’ve chosen their crammed, compromised lifestyles, with full awareness of whatever heartbreak is inherent in them. Perhaps even more so than the top guns, the subelites have the ability to see opportunity in adversity, growth from obstacles. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to be too busy to brood. As Amer says, "I don’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for myself."

Moving Mountains
But contentment does not equate with complacency. Not only do these women want to do better, they state unequivocally that they will do better. How do they know that? Faith.

Kramer, quoting St. Paul, says, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," then adds an application that Paul probably didn’t have in mind: "That’s what keeps me out there in 100 percent humidity—the conviction that I’m going to improve." Bucy says, "I don’t make a living at it now, but I’m trusting that it will work out that way."

So Kelley lives as if she will take 15 seconds per mile off her 5K time, and Kramer is confident that she’ll be a 2:40 marathoner at age 42, even though that’s 10 years past most runners’ peaks.

Faith is a gift, but it can be directed. Note that all these women talk about the future in specific, trackable goals, and pretty hard ones at that. Ultimately, it’s the striving toward those goals that makes the toil of the subelite life worthwhile.

"As long as I feel I’m doing the best I can, I can live with not making it to a national meet," says Kelley, "because I’ll still have gotten better. Most people set their goals here," she says, raising her hand two inches. Then, reaching for the ceiling, she says, "It’s so much fun to put your goals up here. I don’t think most people think that way."

Henry David Thoreau wrote that "in the long run [people] hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. Or, as Bucy says, summing up the subelite credo in words that all athletes should live by, "I don’t want to think about what I’ll do if I don’t make it. I want to think positively. If you plan on not doing well, you won’t do well."

SIDEBAR
Be a Hero with Lessons from the Subs
If you think that the difference between the subelite and you is like the difference between King Lear and Stephen King, and that you have nothing to learn from them, you’re wrong. Any athlete can get more out of herself and her sport by applying these principles that the subelite so successfully use:

Have concise, difficult goals. This usually involves competing, but doesn’t have to. The important thing is to be able to state in precise terms what you want to achieve in a set amount of time. This means, for example, saying, "I want to take a minute off my 10K time by the end of the summer," not, "I want to run faster." Set both short-term (less than 6 months away) and long-term goals.

View adversity as a challenge. No matter how hopeless it seems, look at your situation from the perspective of, "How can I use this to my benefit?" "Since my son was born, I don’t have nearly the time I used to train," says Kelley. "So, I say, ‘Okay, when it’s time for my run, I’m going to get the most out of it that I can,’ rather than worry that I can’t do as many miles as I used to." With this outlook, even physical setbacks can be turned into positives. Says Kelley about being pregnant, "There’s nothing like a forced nine months off to get you motivated."

Do what you enjoy. Focus on the activities that bring you the most pleasure. "I was originally a triathlete," says Carter, "but it took so much time to train for three events. My cycling was always the strongest, so I went with that. Now that I’m just a cyclist, I’ve achieved much more than I ever did in triathlons."

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