Jean's Marines: What a crock

Basically, Jean Somebody from Canada "coaches" a group of women to run the Marine Corps Marathon. And this year she came up with a four mile shortcut(!) for those in danger of not making the race's 7 and a half hour time limit. Then they had the balls to accept finishers medals and wear them around.

Here is the most pathetic quote, this from the founder of Jean's Marines:

"Even though this has been the bypass route utilized by Leukemia Team-in-Training for their slowest participants in order to let them finish their own race . . . and even though it's impossible to 'cheat' when your chip time tells the tale of missing the total distance, there are people in the running community who feel some of our runners and walkers did not earn the medals we so proudly wore that Sunday evening," she wrote.

Someone needs to tell her that aligning yourself with TNT is probably the worst thing to do if you want to gain credibility in the marathoning world.

And to give equal time to an awesome quote, here is one of the things that the Marine Corps RD, Rick Nealis, had to say:

"This is an Olympic sport and people lose sight of that. It's not a touchy-feely, we're all going to feel good, Kumbaya," he said.

Way to show some balls, Mr. Nealis. Knowing that a guy like this is RD makes it more likely that I will run this marathon in the future.

Big threads on this subject over on the Runnersworld message board, and they ripped this group a new buthole, amd I mean RIPPED it.

Do the people who get these medals by cheating really think (or "feel like," as they probably don't think) they've achieved what the medal is supposed to represent? Do they feel any pride? I can't imagine that anyone does. Why do this?

This group gives Canadiens a bad name.

Canadians who can\'t spell Canadians give Canadians a bad name.

Hab you no compassion?

Maybe he was referring to the Montreal Canadiens hockey team?

Your mom is a Canadien.

Wanna get sick, read this:

That is about one of the worst things I have ever read.

Look out TNT! Jean's Marines is about to overtake you as the World's Most Nauseating Running Group.

*on a sidenote, why are the United States Marines so important and inspirational to a group of fat, middle aged women living in Toronto?

Michael J Fox wrote:

*on a sidenote, why are the United States Marines so important and inspirational to a group of fat, middle aged women living in Toronto?

A better question would be why would the proud US Marines allow the Marine brand to be tarnished so badly with this association?

god bless the marines.

The Marines allow a breach in the course enabling runners to cut the course short.

Army achieves success by surprising the masses with a enroute course extension.

Charity runners make me sick.

Out.

Any chance that Jean's Marines will get deployed to Iraq?

Totally agree.

Heck, if this group's leader is going to so emphasize "finishing" the marathon but also condone and even encourage cutting the course....why not just DRIVE four miles of the course?

Interesting that in her bio, Jean claimed to have won the 60-64 age group at Marines, too, makes me wonder about that and what other ethical matters she's "shortened". Sad that "feeling good about oneself" takes priority over standards and values.