Welcome back to another Question of the Week here at The Confusing Middle!

This week, Gregory Stock asks us to sit with something that feels, on the surface, like a pretty simple hypothetical — but the more you actually think about it, the more layers it seems to have. Before we get there, a quick note: last week’s question sent a lot of us into some genuinely uncomfortable self-reflection about the standards we hold ourselves to versus the ones we hold other people to. If you weighed in on that one, I appreciate you being honest about it. This week’s question lives in different territory, but I think it asks something just as revealing about who we are and what we believe.

Here’s the question Stock is putting in front of us this week: Many people are capable of being good runners, but to be world-class you need specific variants of key genes. If you were the best runner in your area and really wanted to win an Olympic gold medal, would you first check your genes? If so, what if you found you didn’t have the right ones?

My Answer: I Wouldn’t Check. And Even If I Did, It Wouldn’t Stop Me.

Let me start with a small admission that might undermine my credibility here: I am not a runner. I have never been a runner. Even in my best physical years, when I was younger and in the kind of shape I will probably never see again, I was not fast. I ran a couple of 5k races back in those days — not because I was under any illusion that I would podium, but because they were there and I wanted to see if I could finish one. And I did. Both times. My finishing times were nothing to brag about by any objective measure, but crossing those finish lines felt like something real to me, and I held onto that feeling.

All of that is to say: I am answering this question as a complete outsider to athletic ambition. But I think the hypothetical still lands, because it’s not really about running. It’s about something much bigger. It’s about what we do when we love something enough to chase it, and what we do when the data says the odds are against us.

On the Question of Checking

So: would I check my genes first?

No. I don’t think I would.

And here’s why. If I had genuinely worked myself up to being the best runner in my area — if I had put in the hours, built the endurance, developed the discipline required to reach that level — then I already know something important about myself. I know I love this enough to have done all of that. I know the pursuit has meaning to me. The question of whether a genetic test would add anything useful to that picture is, I think, worth pressing on.

What would a positive result actually give me? Encouragement, maybe. Confirmation that my genes are aligned with my ambition. But I’m not sure I need that, because the years of work already told me I was capable of something. And what would a negative result give me? The knowledge that my body isn’t genetically optimized for the thing I already love and am already doing at a high level. I’m not sure that changes the equation in any meaningful way, and I’m not sure I want to hand that kind of power to a test result.

There’s also the question of what genetic information actually tells us. We’ve learned enough about genetics in recent decades to know that the relationship between genes and performance is genuinely complicated. Having the “right” variants for a given trait doesn’t guarantee anything. Not having them doesn’t guarantee anything either. We’re talking about probabilities and tendencies layered on top of environmental factors, training, mental resilience, nutrition, timing, luck, and about a thousand other variables. A genetic test can tell you something. It cannot tell you everything. And I’d be cautious about treating it like it could.

On Biology Setting Real Limits

Now, I do want to be honest about something, because I think it would be easy to take my answer and turn it into some kind of inspirational poster, and that’s not exactly what I’m going for here.

I believe in biology. I believe that bodies have real ceilings, and that those ceilings vary from person to person, and that some of those differences are genuinely genetic. I don’t think the human body is infinitely plastic — that if you just want something badly enough and work hard enough, the ceiling doesn’t matter. That’s a nice idea, and there’s real truth in the value of effort and determination, but it bumps up against the reality of how bodies actually work.

The best runners in the world are extraordinary athletes who have worked extraordinarily hard. They have also, almost certainly, been dealt a genetic hand that makes elite performance possible for them in a way it simply isn’t for most people, regardless of desire or discipline. You can be a dedicated, lifelong runner, log incredible mileage, eat well, sleep well, train smart, and still never get close to the times the world’s top competitors run. That’s not a failure of will. That’s physiology.

So I’m not saying the genes don’t matter. I’m saying I don’t think knowing about them ahead of time would change what I chose to do.

What If I Found Out I Didn’t Have the Right Ones?

Here’s where the question gets most interesting to me, and where I think the real heart of it lives.

If I went ahead and checked — maybe out of curiosity, maybe because someone convinced me it would be useful — and the results came back saying I didn’t have the genetic variants associated with elite running performance, what would I do?

I’d keep running.

I don’t say that to be stubborn, or to perform a kind of inspirational defiance that doesn’t hold up under examination. I say it because I think the framing of “you don’t have the right genes, so this isn’t for you” gets something fundamentally wrong about why people chase big things. At least for me.

If I loved running enough to be the best in my area — if I had given enough of myself to the pursuit that I was genuinely competing at that level — then the question of whether an Olympic gold medal was in my genetic destiny would feel almost beside the point. The goal isn’t just the medal. The goal is to see how far I can actually go. The medal is the marker at the outer edge of that question, but the question itself is worth pursuing regardless of whether you ultimately reach the marker.

And maybe I’m romanticizing this a little. I’m aware of that possibility. But I think there’s something genuinely worth protecting in the idea that a test result doesn’t get to be the final word on what you try for. Other people’s data doesn’t have to become your ceiling.

Going Back to Those 5Ks

I keep coming back to those two races I ran, years ago, when my body was in better shape than it is now and my finishing times were still nothing to brag about. I didn’t run them to win. I ran them to find out if I could finish. And finishing was enough — not because I had lowered my expectations to match my abilities, but because the goal I had set was the right goal for where I was, and meeting it felt like something real.

I think that’s the thing Stock is quietly poking at with this question. The gold medal isn’t accessible to most of us, genetically or otherwise. But the question of whether we’re willing to run anyway, and how we relate to the gap between our ambitions and our ceilings — that’s something most of us can actually locate in our own lives, even if we’ve never laced up a pair of racing shoes.

The genetic test is just the most dramatic version of the question we’ve all faced at some point: someone or something telling us we don’t have what it takes, and deciding what to do with that information.

I’d rather not ask the question. And even if I did, I’d rather not let the answer stop me.

Your Turn

Alright — I want to hear where you land on this one, because I genuinely think the answers are going to vary depending on how people think about ambition, biology, and what we owe ourselves when we pursue something we love.

Would you check your genes before committing to a long-shot goal? Does knowing the odds — or the biological deck — change how hard you’re willing to chase something? And if you found out the answer was working against you, would you keep going, or would you redirect your energy somewhere you had a better shot?

Drop your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to know whether you’d want to know, or whether you’d rather run in the dark.

Until next week, this is Aaron, still here at The Confusing Middle, still working through Gregory Stock’s questions one uncomfortable truth at a time.

Feature Photo by Pixabay