Keira "Body Image"post

Keira who?

Excellent post.

Knightly I would assume.

Truth be told, she really isn't in peak marathon shape currently. She probably would be a few pounds lighter otherwise.

It’s funny to me that people think they know how the conversation did or did not go. Why would she make this whole story up?
This happens to female runners more than you think. Read the comment section of her post..many other elite runners have said they get comments too.
The guy who said it to her maybe did mean tall but when body image /eating disorders are prevalent in female runners, saying “big” for a runner can be detrimental.
Also for what it’s worth, my sister went to worlds and she would have no idea who Keira is if she just saw her in the stands. Not everyone who went is hard core let’s run track folks.

If the guy meant tall, then it is just an innocent comment and maybe a little ignorant. Paula Radcliffe was 5'8" and plenty of elite females are around Keira's height, although she may be moderately taller than average (She's what, about 5'5" at best?) for a marathoner, certainly within the normal range.

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If he meant big as in overall "large", that's just his opinion and he's flat out wrong, and I'm sure she isn't phased by this as she knows better.

The guy man splaining from Molly’s flight strikes again! He is on fire!

No, it was made up for attention. Nice lady, I met her at a half marathon, but nobody said that to her. LOTS of people in sports do this now, make something up to get your name out there. The next thing you know, she's on a talk show or podcast talking about it. No one said that to her, didn't happen.

I agree this is the most likely answer, that this is just what one of my kids described to me once as "oppression porn," of a kind that social media followers seem to eat up these days. The only way this post would get more attention than it has is, ironically, if Keira was even more famous and privileged, and thus had more followers. We just seem to eat up this kind of thing as a society these days: some comfortable person posts an unprovable story about a mildly unpleasant interaction and we take it as proof of some underlying systemic oppression that, weirdly, seems mainly to impact relatively famous people. It's sick, really, because we should be paying attention to actual oppressed people more than we do, but instead we all took sides in the Heard-Depp trial, and will continue to do similar in future.

I saw Keira in person the first time a few mos ago and when I saw her, she was obviously fit but not some tiny person. Far "thinner" than the average person, obviously, because Americans are grossly obese, but it was nice to know a top marathoner wasn't so disordered looking.

People who question this story -- people, both men and women, say ridiculous things out loud to other people all the time about everything from weight to hair to clothing. Most of us brush it off, especially women, because we're so used to it.

I have empathy for people with eating disorders, but we have to be able to talk about body weight in distance running--not in an obnoxious or aggressive way--but there's an obvious correlation between body size and one's capacity to be an elite distance runner. As others mentioned, all 3 US runners weigh probably around 105, maybe 110 depending on their height. Many people cannot sustain this body weight in a healthy way, but the kind of people who make it into the professional ranks can and do because their body frames are much smaller than those of the average person. Young people need to know that body weight matters (though it's not the only thing) but that you cannot change your own ideal running weight range without destroying other aspects of your own athletic talent.

None of this justifies a lengthy conversation about a stranger's body type, but other athletes get this stuff all the time. Keira's post is mildly annoying because it comes from that genre of virtue signaling where healthy women with a healthy body image act as if they're victimized by a minor social transgression (some may disagree that it's even a transgression) on behalf of vulnerable others.

In my opinion, few things are more toxic than the genres of "advice" meant to confront the eating disorder problem in running. It's all over instagram and pops up in recommended accounts if you're a woman runner on instagram. In attempting to confront ED and body image problems, these accounts actually model this psychology to others. This genre also has the unintended effect of normalizing eating disorders. Lots of runners have a healthy relationship with food and their bodies. This probably includes the majority of elite runners. I'm not trying to be a jerk because this is serious business, but what I am saying is that a lot of this toxic culture comes from other women athletes, not just coaches or random boneheads on the street.

If women want to be considered serious athletes, they need to get used to people commenting on their bodies. They do it to men, just last week there was an article about Leonard Fournette’s weight in the sports outlets. CharlesBarkley was the Round Mound of Rebound. Are we to think women athletes can’t handle this?

Letsrun...where women are second class citizens...unless they're in a race with a DSD athlete, then it's protect women at all costs

the audacity ...

Didn't she say big? I know big often means fat, but it has other meanings too.

It goes with the total misunderstanding of what it takes to be a "good" runner.

When I coached there were so many people who thought that just because their child was tiny they would be fast.

Or tall- but their stride is so long, they MUST be fast.

The person was still wrong and wrong to say it.

I remember once when I was young someone said- you don't look Italian.

I'm 100% Italian. Grandparents off the boat, Ellis Island, parents spoke Italian.

I am what an Italian looks like.

She is what a great marathoner looks like.

I agree you're right. But, it is a problem. I coached a high school girl who was very good- top 10 in NY State 4 years in a row. Full ride to college.

But, she was not the "skinny, little runner girl" like most of her competition.

One year my 7 varsity girls weighed 675 libs and two of them weighed 130 each!

I found an article about Carrie Tollefson, who happened to be the same size as her.

I didn't say a thing about height or weight or body image. I just said- here's an article about a runner you might like.

She came back excited that a world class runner was the same height and weight as she was.

Well done

I would guess, no actually I know, you have NO IDEA what was said.

Nice guess though to create a cool little story.

So brave of her to share this story.