A Discourse on Running Morality
Its about as cold as it gets in Philadelphia right now, temps in the mid teens with some wind. Monday's snow has now gotten stale, which our crappy city services (and slated to get crappier) more often than not leave on the street to get compacted into pitted gray ice.
These conditions were unpalatable enough yesterday to where I said screw it and ran on the hamster wheel. That has its own set of problems that I usually whine about when I'm running indoors. But I got in 8 and was pleased with myself that I got a workout in at all.
Erin, Jody and I met this morning, I felt bad for being a few minutes late on what was likely the worst morning of the year to be late. Perhaps because of the conditions we compensated with more lively conversation than usual along the way. Route was up to the Art Museum and back on Spring Garden St., not the wisest of routes given the snow.
One of the topics that came up was an offshoot of the TV show Biggest Loser that I confess that I've at times been known to watch thanks to the nefarious influence of Reba. In doing a follow up on one of the contestants that was voted off of the show, it showed him running a marathon 8 weeks after losing 130 pounds. The time in which he crossed the finish line was a remarkable 3:50 or so. Turns out, if you follow this link, it was too remarkable. This rekindles that slimy feeling I get after I lose an hour of my life (I never sit through the whole show) watching the show, kind of like a burp after a fast food meal.
What gets me all self-righteous about this is that this episode goes directly against the ethic of most runners I meet out there, who bend over backwards to make sure their accomplishments are legit. I've seen (and have done it myself) runners go an extra 100 meters past a finish point just to make sure they got a certain amount of miles in on their training run, or do painstaking homework to prove a course measurement short on a race they have pr'd on. All to make sure that those accomplishments they do make are legit. For if it ain't legit, why do it? Perhaps that's why we feel so little mercy for the likes of Eddy Hellebuyck and Marion Jones.
I'll get off my soapbox now. 5.674 miles, untimed.
The blog turned rant. Can you tell I feel strongly about this.
These conditions were unpalatable enough yesterday to where I said screw it and ran on the hamster wheel. That has its own set of problems that I usually whine about when I'm running indoors. But I got in 8 and was pleased with myself that I got a workout in at all.
Erin, Jody and I met this morning, I felt bad for being a few minutes late on what was likely the worst morning of the year to be late. Perhaps because of the conditions we compensated with more lively conversation than usual along the way. Route was up to the Art Museum and back on Spring Garden St., not the wisest of routes given the snow.
One of the topics that came up was an offshoot of the TV show Biggest Loser that I confess that I've at times been known to watch thanks to the nefarious influence of Reba. In doing a follow up on one of the contestants that was voted off of the show, it showed him running a marathon 8 weeks after losing 130 pounds. The time in which he crossed the finish line was a remarkable 3:50 or so. Turns out, if you follow this link, it was too remarkable. This rekindles that slimy feeling I get after I lose an hour of my life (I never sit through the whole show) watching the show, kind of like a burp after a fast food meal.
What gets me all self-righteous about this is that this episode goes directly against the ethic of most runners I meet out there, who bend over backwards to make sure their accomplishments are legit. I've seen (and have done it myself) runners go an extra 100 meters past a finish point just to make sure they got a certain amount of miles in on their training run, or do painstaking homework to prove a course measurement short on a race they have pr'd on. All to make sure that those accomplishments they do make are legit. For if it ain't legit, why do it? Perhaps that's why we feel so little mercy for the likes of Eddy Hellebuyck and Marion Jones.
I'll get off my soapbox now. 5.674 miles, untimed.
The blog turned rant. Can you tell I feel strongly about this.
posted by seebo | 8:51 AM
1 Comments:
What I don't get is if you're going to cheat, why only skip 3 miles? I mean, 23 miles is still hard. Why not skip from 13-25?
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