Basic Trope: A race so long that just covering the distance is considered an accomplishment.
- Straight: Alice and Bob are entrants in a fifty-mile footrace.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Bob are entrants in a five-hundred-mile footrace.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob are entrants in a marathon.
- Justified: The race is one test in a series of challenges to determine which competitor is greatest.
- Inverted: Alice and Bob are entrants in a hundred-meter dash.
- Subverted: Alice and Bob enter a marathon — as a training run for an upcoming fifty-miler.
- Double Subverted: ...but the marathon takes place on a difficult mountain trail course.
- Parodied: Alice and Bob enter a five-kilometer race, but they're so out of shape that none of their friends know if they can finish.
- Zig Zagged: The race is a simple 5K run, but the start line is on the far end of a three-week backpacking expedition into the wilderness.
- Averted:
- The race is rained out.
- There are no footraces (or races of any kind) in the work.
- The race is a normal length.
- Enforced: The episode is intended to deliver An Aesop on persistence.
- Lampshaded: "Wow — I don't know if I could run a mile."
- Invoked: The race is advertised as "so hard, only 30% of entrants finish!"
- Exploited: Bob was bragging to Alice about how fast he is, so when he challenges her to a race, she picks one where endurance matters more than raw speed.
- Defied: Alice and Bob agree to both drop out at Mile 10.
- Discussed: "I want to emphasize to you all that there is no shame in failing to complete the course. If you're feeling ill and cannot continue, please: walk to the nearest aid station and drop out. We don't want anyone getting seriously hurt out there."
- Conversed: "Wow, they've really been playing up the whole 'many shall try, few shall succeed' angle on this race. I bet it will come down to just Alice and Bob by the end."
- Implied: When Alice is looking at Bob's racing trophies, she's just as impressed by his "Finisher" medal for one of the races as by his first, second, and third place awards for other events.
Back to Epic Race.
