Running Chick

Several weeks ago, an article appeared in the NY Times that alternately made me think and made me irritated.  I thought that I should write a blag post about it, but then I decided that I was too irritated and I put it on the back burner.  I’ve thought about this article a lot since then and it still irritates me.  But, I can’t figure out if it irritates me because I fit the profile, or because it’s truly outrageous.  I think it’s probably a little bit of one and a lot of the other.

The article is called Plodders Have a Place, but Is It in a Marathon?  and it’s all about how slow runners are bringing down the marathon and turning it into something it wasn’t meant to be – for the average schmo.

I’m an average schmo and I’m slow.  I take my training seriously.  I do the hills, the intervals, the LSDs.  I do weights, I do yoga and stretch religiously.  I do everything I’m supposed to do to get faster, but I never really do.  Oh, I’ve had my accidental bouts with speed.  Once last winter, as I was cruising down a long hill, I glanced at my Garmin and saw eight-something blip by.  I was all pumped thinking that I was fast, even for a split second.  And, I guess last winter I did see more miles in the nines than previous years’ tens or elevens.  Or my typical 13 or 14 minute miles (haha) from four years ago.  Okay, so maybe I did get faster in the four or five years since I decided to let my addition run rampant (pun intended).  But, really, I highly doubt I will never get fast enough to run a marathon in under five hours.  And it certainly seems as though in the eyes of the author of the article, I have no business participating.

But, I just don’t get it.  What’s really the problem some speedsters have with us slow pokes, anyway?  They start way ahead of us, they don’t have to contend with weaving around us on the course and they finish way before us.  They never have to wonder if there’ll be enough food left at the end.  When they say their finishing time was three hours and bla or four hours and bla, we are in absolute awe.  Holy shit, that’s fast.  Our finishing time, possibly hours after theirs, takes absolutely nothing away from them.  I don’t really see what the problem is.

The U.S. has one of the highest, if not the highest, obesity rate in the world.  I feel slightly embarrassed by that figure.  But, maybe the increasing marathon participation from the slow pokes, means that one or more of those obese folks is taking control of their lives and getting healthy using running as their catalyst.  I can’t even think of a reason why that wouldn’t be a good thing.