Is Walk the New Jog?
I decided to do penance for skipping Pilates today and walk, rather than drive, to the library. It was a typical San Diego Saturday, with cloudless blue skies and moderate temps. At one point, I passed a guy about my age going in the opposite direction. “Nice day for jogging, isn’t it?” he said as we crossed paths. “Sure is,” I responded.
Here’s the thing: Neither of us was jogging.
There’s a distinction between the pace of a jogger and a runner, and, so I thought, between a walker and a jogger. But after spending part of the past week engrossed in online discussions on the charity scandal, thanks to a comment posted by Donald in the Carmel Valley, I’m beginning to wonder. As Donald mentioned, the debate got ugly. Fair criticism of tactics used to help the slowest marathoners make the cut-off quickly devolved into foul-mouthed diatribes on fat people in competitive races. For some bizarre reason, the more immature commentators lump them all as charity runners. These rants are nothing new, but they’re starting to hit me in the gut.
My doctors all tell me I have the heart and lungs of a 23-year-old, but I don’t have the same physique as someone 20 years my junior. A slowing metabolism and stressful job, not to mention lifelong weakness for anything salty and crunchy and void of natural ingredients, have led to significant weight gain. This despite logging 30 to 50 miles weekly for many years. I can’t run as fast anymore, in part because I’m carrying all this extra weight. And during my last two half marathons, I walked for a stretch to either stay vertical or stop vomiting.
Yet I also know a woman fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon every year who once told me she barely fits into her size 12 jeans anymore. And I know numerous size 6 types who’ve never broken the 5-hour marathon barrier, let alone the magical 4-hour one. At a talk with ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes last spring, one stocky, middle-aged woman told the crowd she’d finished last year’s grueling Western States 100-mile race -- in under 24 hours. Everyone, including the guest speaker, was duly impressed.
There is an implication in all those forum postings I read that if you must walk some or all of a 26.2-mile course, you shouldn’t call yourself a marathoner, let alone be awarded a medal. Clearly, these folks have never been on a suffocating-hot course hours into the day, when the water’s dried up at several aid stops, course marshals have abandoned their post and the spectators have all gone home. That’s when you have to dig deep, maybe sooner in a course than you expected and hours after your friends crossed the finish. You have to convince yourself to keep going, to ignore the growing pain in your limbs and in your heart. You must ignore the blisters on the bottom of your feet and the chafe marks eating at your skin and focus only on that digital clock still so far in the distance. It’s that determination and dedication to stay the course despite an increasingly dire situation that, in my opinion, makes you a marathoner.
Though I guess to some that’s being too charitable.
Here’s the thing: Neither of us was jogging.
There’s a distinction between the pace of a jogger and a runner, and, so I thought, between a walker and a jogger. But after spending part of the past week engrossed in online discussions on the charity scandal, thanks to a comment posted by Donald in the Carmel Valley, I’m beginning to wonder. As Donald mentioned, the debate got ugly. Fair criticism of tactics used to help the slowest marathoners make the cut-off quickly devolved into foul-mouthed diatribes on fat people in competitive races. For some bizarre reason, the more immature commentators lump them all as charity runners. These rants are nothing new, but they’re starting to hit me in the gut.
My doctors all tell me I have the heart and lungs of a 23-year-old, but I don’t have the same physique as someone 20 years my junior. A slowing metabolism and stressful job, not to mention lifelong weakness for anything salty and crunchy and void of natural ingredients, have led to significant weight gain. This despite logging 30 to 50 miles weekly for many years. I can’t run as fast anymore, in part because I’m carrying all this extra weight. And during my last two half marathons, I walked for a stretch to either stay vertical or stop vomiting.
Yet I also know a woman fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon every year who once told me she barely fits into her size 12 jeans anymore. And I know numerous size 6 types who’ve never broken the 5-hour marathon barrier, let alone the magical 4-hour one. At a talk with ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes last spring, one stocky, middle-aged woman told the crowd she’d finished last year’s grueling Western States 100-mile race -- in under 24 hours. Everyone, including the guest speaker, was duly impressed.
There is an implication in all those forum postings I read that if you must walk some or all of a 26.2-mile course, you shouldn’t call yourself a marathoner, let alone be awarded a medal. Clearly, these folks have never been on a suffocating-hot course hours into the day, when the water’s dried up at several aid stops, course marshals have abandoned their post and the spectators have all gone home. That’s when you have to dig deep, maybe sooner in a course than you expected and hours after your friends crossed the finish. You have to convince yourself to keep going, to ignore the growing pain in your limbs and in your heart. You must ignore the blisters on the bottom of your feet and the chafe marks eating at your skin and focus only on that digital clock still so far in the distance. It’s that determination and dedication to stay the course despite an increasingly dire situation that, in my opinion, makes you a marathoner.
Though I guess to some that’s being too charitable.
