This was my thought too. It's just a matter of picking an arbitrary metric and shooting for it, given constraints that probably don't matter.
I like hiking, and enjoy challenging myself. Sometimes I shoot for my longest distance ever, sometimes I shoot for more technicality, sometimes it's just raw elevation gain over a shorter distance, sometimes it's all of them. I rarely shoot for time, my constraint at that level is typically getting the thing done without having to camp out for the night, but I could just as well do that. I often shoot for time over elevation and distance with road cycling though.
I like hiking, and enjoy challenging myself. Sometimes I shoot for my longest distance ever, sometimes I shoot for more technicality, sometimes it's just raw elevation gain over a shorter distance, sometimes it's all of them. I rarely shoot for time, my constraint at that level is typically getting the thing done without having to camp out for the night, but I could just as well do that. I often shoot for time over elevation and distance with road cycling though.