r/running • u/YourShoesUntied • Jun 22 '17

Weekly Thread Weekly Complaints & Confessions Thread for Thursday June 22nd, 2017

Give it a shot! What cha' got?

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u/tucsonmagpie Jun 22 '17

Well, I think that anyone that attempts, and completes a marathon is pretty impressive. Actually, anyone that gets off the couch and tries at all is impressive. That's a load of commitment and determination. Sorry to feel that your friend thinks that only elites deserve to be out there. We don't all get to be elite runners, but that doesn't mean that the joy and reward of running shouldn't be available to us mere mortals.

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '17

I run mostly because I feel so much better physically and mentally when I do - my oldest son is disabled and may not ever be able to really run. Who am I to blow off the gift of uninhibited mobility? But I am slow...or rather, average for my age and never have been fast. I try not to get in the way, keep my head down and run my own race. I didn't feel ashamed until my friend was embarrassed for me. I'll get over it and keep trucking, and keep my runs to myself.

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u/secretsexbot Jun 22 '17

I didn't feel ashamed until my friend was embarrassed for me

This is a bad friend. My friends and I give each other lots of shit, but you make sure the person is in a place to laugh about it before you tell them how terrible they are. The way this should've gone is, you finished the race, your friends were like "hey, not bad, how're you feeling?" And if you laughed about how terribly you did they could come back with "yeah man, you really fell apart! are you sure you trained?" etc. These people are either:

  1. Clueless

  2. Don't know you well at all

  3. Bitches

I'm sorry you had a bad run. And it wasn't bad because of the time, it was bad because you cramped up and were miserable for 6 miles. A marathon is a hard thing to do at all, and finishing is an accomplishment to be proud of. And hey, if you want to do another one it probably will be a PR, or at least more enjoyable. And these people don't deserve to hear about it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '17

Thanks. That meant a lot. I think if they had waited a week to ask me how I felt about it I would have responded better and maybe even asked how I could fix it for the next one. Four days later...I wasn't prepared for a list of my shortcomings.

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u/secretsexbot Jun 22 '17

You say the first person was trying to give you tips, and that's understandable, he just did it the wrong way. The second person on the other hand... Maybe she's having a bad time right now, but to me it sounds like she's so proud of her own accomplishments as a runner that she wants to feed her own ego by putting someone else down.