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Now, if you ask me, THIS is elitism. It's like a lot of people think shorter races are beneath them. I mean, why not celebrate quitting smoking by getting your 5-K time under 19 minutes? I'll tell you why--because the people you work with won't be as impressed as they will be by that marathon you spent 6 hours getting through, although the real athletic feat is probably the former rather than the latter. At this point, though, when you announce you've done a marathon, people say, "Oh, that's great, my parents just did one to celebrate their 50th anniversary," so it looks like folks will have to find another more grueling event that will carry the cachet.Some people might say, "But I'm never going to be good at any running event! It is about the achievement of finishing for me!" The point is not that you'll WIN those 5-Ks--it's that given the training time most folks have, if you focus your training and use discipline, you will be MUCH more competitive at a shorter event that you would be at a marathon. And despite most people's protestations that's it's about finishing and that competition is evil and so on, I think you'll have that little spark awakened in you. Who knows, you might end up enjoying it!
Amen. An 18-minute 5-K would impress me a heck of a lot more than a 5.5 hour marathon -- and probably would be a much better indicator of health and fitness.
Ugh. It's the same kind of attitude a heavy person gets in the more elitist health clubs/gyms, where the majority of folks is already slim and beautiful and act like you have some nerve screwing up the aesthetics of "their" place.
It's certainly not. Did you even read the rest of my post? I'm all for encouraging physical fitness, be it achieved through a gym or out on the park jogging path, but why this insane obsession with the marathon, and of all things, by starting one's fitness regime with a marathon as the short-term goal? It's just silly.
