Our first encounter was a strange one.
I’d just completed a Five-Mile race. And as I reached for the Gatorade and bananas past the finish line, another racer asked me how I’d done.
I flatly mentioned my accolades. Sixth overall, top in my age division. An age division it turns out we shared.
Wow, the other racer replied. I bested my time from last year, when I won the division. And yet, I wasn’t able to catch you.
This race keeps getting faster and faster.
I immediately felt a twinge of guilt.
This runner had clearly set his sights on this race. He was aiming for a first-place divisional medal.
I, on the other hand, had no idea what I was doing. I’d never raced anything longer than a 5K before. And I’d shown up at the starting line in a pair of trainers that were past their prime.
Things didn’t exactly click either once the starting horn sounded. I decided to keep pace with a blonde woman in a sports bra – who I later learned was a local elite racer from a different age division. I was unwittingly setting myself up for an epic meltdown, miles from the finish line.
But that meltdown never came. Despite huffing and puffing, I maintained my pace past mile three, and mile four. Meanwhile, the blonde elite dropped back. At the end I was running all alone.
And so, by blind luck, I’d wrestled a spot atop the medal stand from someone who had worked hard for it. I was an imposter. A thief.
Or so I thought.
A couple months after the race, I showed up at a high school track well before dawn.
I was training for a half-marathon at this point. And a friend had convinced me that joining Track Tuesday workouts with the local elites would help on race day.
The blonde woman I’d bested in the five-miler wasn’t at the track. But several other top-notch athletes were.
I’d heard their names atop race leaderboards before. And I was intimidated.
What if I wasn’t fast enough to keep up? Would I be invited back?
The anxiety was First Day of School level.
But then I saw a familiar face. The guy I’d talked to after that five-mile race.
He joined the group for the warmup laps, before peeling off to start his own workout. And my anxiety disappeared.
The next Track Tuesday, he joined us on our warmups once again. The same for the Track Tuesday after that.
I eventually approached him and explained that I was training properly now. My days of bumbling into races and stealing podium spots from him were over.
His response floored me.
Oh, don’t worry about that. That was my first race back after a hiatus. And what you did there helped set the bar for me in terms of what I need to do to get back in race shape.
I’d never considered that competitors could help each other in this way. That they could inspire each other to dig deeper and aim higher.
That together, they could raise the bar for everyone.
This revelation set the stage for my training with the local elites. It provided the impetus for me to keep showing up.
I knew I stood no chance of besting these amazing runners in a race. But they inspired me to get the most out of myself. And they inspired each other to do the same.
While my competitive running career was ultimately shortened by injuries, that group has kept on inspiring the running community. They’ve continued to put stellar race performances on the board.
They’re still raising the bar.
I am the firstborn of my generation.
My sister and my cousins are all younger than me. Many by several years.
Growing up, I had a sense that all eyes were on me. If I were to mess up, I could send an entire generation of relatives down the wrong path.
This was a heavy weight to bear. And I carried it solemnly.
That is, until my father started his family tree project.
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These were the days before high-speed internet. And the concept of consumer-facing DNA test kits was still a ways off.
So, my father interviewed most of his living relatives to fill out the tree – either in-person or over the phone.
And the stories that came out of those discussions captivated me.
For instance, I learned that the paternal branch of my family tree — the one that has carried my last name through the generations — is essentially a rags to riches story. My great grandfather was raised by a single mother who peddled goods along the beach.
Their small family didn’t have much. And society looked harshly upon my great-great grandmother for being a single mother.
My great grandfather would overcome these modest beginnings. He would graduate from high school and go on run a grocery store. One of his sons — my grandfather — would become a doctor. And one of his sons — my father — would become a businessman and then a private school teacher.
In less than a century, my family had worked their way up through society.
After hearing all this, I started to look at my de-facto role differently.
I didn’t need to be the perfect guiding light for my younger relatives. I just needed to raise the bar a little more, so that they could have something to eclipse.
I’ve leaned into this task with gusto. To this day, my most frequent advice to my sister and cousins is:
Don’t try to be me. Be better than me.
And they have.
My sister and my cousins are all amazing people who have done incredible things. These days, they inspire me twice as much as I could ever inspire them.
This is raising the bar at its best. In the right circumstances, achievement can become a flywheel. And the rising tide can lift all boats.
There’s a lot of discourse out there these days about the dangers of striving.
While this country was built on the spirit of upward mobility, its promise has seemingly faded.
Giving more effort no longer leads to the promise of achievement. Instead, it saddles you with more expectations and higher demands. It sets you on an intractable course with your breaking point.
At least that what the critics say.
There is some merit to this argument. After all, it’s harder than ever to keep up with modern society. And burnout seems to have become a more ubiquitous affliction than the common cold.
Yet, I still reject the premise of this theory.
Sure, raising the bar is hard, demanding, and often unfulfilling. And it can dent our ego to see our hard work get erased by those who come before us.
But without that first step, there can be no leap. There’s no spark. There’s no inertia. There’s no possibility of stretching beyond the horizon.
We need that hope, that inspiration. We need the push to meet the moment.
Our families need it. Our affinity groups need it. Our society needs it.
So, let’s keep striving. Let’s keep giving our best. Let’s keep raising the bar.
We’ll all be better for it.