I ran a "race" on Memorial Day. It was a 10k road race, and I was proud of my finish time of 57 minutes (my goal was sub one hour finish time) I placed 10th in my age group, 131 overall out of 250 or so runners. I shared this with a friend, who then asked when my next "run" was. I said that I run about 5 times a week, but I wasn't "racing" again until July. He then commented that it isn't really a race if I am not competing.

I WAS competing. I was running against my own personal records. But I did not go in with the expectation of an award, a spot on the podium as it were.

So, is this a race, or just a run where I bought a t-shirt?