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OK, my husband, whom I admire greatly, has run several marathons and he finished in about 4 hours each time. When we ran concurrent events (one time, for example, I was competing in the half, which started at the same time) I was as happy for him when he finished as he was for me--and I WON my event overall. The thing I don't get, which this writer talks about, is why you would put in the time and effort to royally suck through a long event when you could put in the same time and effort and actually be GOOD at a shorter event. I also have done triathlons. I never did a half ironman or an ironman--I confined myself to Olympic distance or shorter--because the training I had time for was enough (in conjunction with my native athletic talents) for me to kick ass at those distances, but not enough to be competitive in longer races. My husband, as well, while running the occasional marathon, placed a lot of his effort into improving his 5 and 10-K times. Meanwhile, I knew a lot of people in the tri community who took up the sport and immediately decided to do a half ironman, while they could barely get through the shorter events in a reasonable time. 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!
