They are, but of course the playstyle and mentality is different.
Speedrunning feels more like a job than playing a game with friends or playing casually. It may as well be seperate to games in the way you treat it.
When you play a game, more often than not your goal is to have fun, relieve stress or improve.
You can speedrun for fun, and many people do, I even do it. But many people speedrun to be the best, and when something like that is your focus, it bcomes a job.
Inb4 Havoc comes in telling me to sop derailing threads to talk about speedruns when I didnt start it.