I'm sick of the marathon and marathon culture!

Mid Distance til I die wrote:

I consider myself a fan of pro running and someone who enjoys running recreationally but the marathon has never appealed to me personally. That was fine for most of my running life, I could do other distances and watch pros compete on the track. But now, getting older the marathon seems to keep rearing it's ugly head for me and it's becoming inescapable!

My Instagram feed is plagued by all types of marathon runners from casuals giving basic tips about getting started to ex-D1 guys posting their OTQ training. Then there's the huge coverage on the boards that Berlin, Boston, CIM, Houston, and every major and minor marathon in between get. On top of that, all my local running clubs are pretty much exclusively training for the marathon and local runners worship the BQ like Canaanites at the idol of Ba'al! Marathoners on Strava are also insufferable because they post these huge sessions and big mileage in this masturbatory quest for kudos and then when they bomb out on their goal race, they get to pen a novel about what specifically went wrong with a) fueling, b) pacing, c) course conditions, or d) all of the above. It really just seems to be the lowest common denominator of running that spreads across all levels. It's the event that you do for your co-workers to pat you on the back or for you to finally bring up your training around the water cooler because it's somewhat intelligible to the general populace.

It all just sort of blends together in this horrible, narcissistic sludge that I associate with all things marathon: the 26.2 bumper sticker, the Boston gear, hydration belts, gels, and Maurten bottles. Doesn't anyone get that the marathon isn't special anymore? Like how can you feel unique on the starting line with 20,000+ other bozos?!?! Am I alone in thinking this event has become one of the worst parts about the sport/activity of running? Maybe I'm just cynical because running to me has always felt like this weird, niche thing that I enjoyed and that was just for me, not meant to be shared or spread to people outside of the running circle.

Mid Distance til I die wrote:

good future here wrote:

you mad bro?

do your own thing and maybe ease up with your envy scrolling on social media

I'm going to defend myself on this one point: I do not "envy scroll" to find these people. I just open up my Instagram and my explore page and reels are littered with them. Literally just on my lunch break I had a reel pop up of some dude just listing off his splits for a 23 mile 'thon prep run and, of course, dude has his coaching links so you can pay to "PR in half the time!" I also get these dudes Runnerhabs and TheWoodsRun all the time and it's always the same stuff about generic running motivation that, to me, seems so targeted at high schoolers just to sell them their coaching plans. From what I can tell it's 50/50 on whether these types are legit but it's always using marathon training to bump high mileage and post these "insane" long runs at like sub 6 pace but none of it feels right. Like the goal of all these guys (and I feel like a lot of marathoners in general) is not to train hard and build towards a good race, but rather to make a little commercial for themselves and have a yolked up strava profile. I just find it all really disappointing and kind of gross to see that people really only value running as form of peacocking or trying to leverage their running into selling some kid a spreadsheet of basic training at an OTQ markup.

Mid Distance til I die wrote:

I consider myself a fan of pro running and someone who enjoys running recreationally but the marathon has never appealed to me personally. That was fine for most of my running life, I could do other distances and watch pros compete on the track. But now, getting older the marathon seems to keep rearing it's ugly head for me and it's becoming inescapable!

My Instagram feed is plagued by all types of marathon runners from casuals giving basic tips about getting started to ex-D1 guys posting their OTQ training. Then there's the huge coverage on the boards that Berlin, Boston, CIM, Houston, and every major and minor marathon in between get. On top of that, all my local running clubs are pretty much exclusively training for the marathon and local runners worship the BQ like Canaanites at the idol of Ba'al! Marathoners on Strava are also insufferable because they post these huge sessions and big mileage in this masturbatory quest for kudos and then when they bomb out on their goal race, they get to pen a novel about what specifically went wrong with a) fueling, b) pacing, c) course conditions, or d) all of the above. It really just seems to be the lowest common denominator of running that spreads across all levels. It's the event that you do for your co-workers to pat you on the back or for you to finally bring up your training around the water cooler because it's somewhat intelligible to the general populace.

It all just sort of blends together in this horrible, narcissistic sludge that I associate with all things marathon: the 26.2 bumper sticker, the Boston gear, hydration belts, gels, and Maurten bottles. Doesn't anyone get that the marathon isn't special anymore? Like how can you feel unique on the starting line with 20,000+ other bozos?!?! Am I alone in thinking this event has become one of the worst parts about the sport/activity of running? Maybe I'm just cynical because running to me has always felt like this weird, niche thing that I enjoyed and that was just for me, not meant to be shared or spread to people outside of the running circle.

Ncaafan1979 wrote:

Mid Distance til I die wrote:

I consider myself a fan of pro running and someone who enjoys running recreationally but the marathon has never appealed to me personally. That was fine for most of my running life, I could do other distances and watch pros compete on the track. But now, getting older the marathon seems to keep rearing it's ugly head for me and it's becoming inescapable!

My Instagram feed is plagued by all types of marathon runners from casuals giving basic tips about getting started to ex-D1 guys posting their OTQ training. Then there's the huge coverage on the boards that Berlin, Boston, CIM, Houston, and every major and minor marathon in between get. On top of that, all my local running clubs are pretty much exclusively training for the marathon and local runners worship the BQ like Canaanites at the idol of Ba'al! Marathoners on Strava are also insufferable because they post these huge sessions and big mileage in this masturbatory quest for kudos and then when they bomb out on their goal race, they get to pen a novel about what specifically went wrong with a) fueling, b) pacing, c) course conditions, or d) all of the above. It really just seems to be the lowest common denominator of running that spreads across all levels. It's the event that you do for your co-workers to pat you on the back or for you to finally bring up your training around the water cooler because it's somewhat intelligible to the general populace.

It all just sort of blends together in this horrible, narcissistic sludge that I associate with all things marathon: the 26.2 bumper sticker, the Boston gear, hydration belts, gels, and Maurten bottles. Doesn't anyone get that the marathon isn't special anymore? Like how can you feel unique on the starting line with 20,000+ other bozos?!?! Am I alone in thinking this event has become one of the worst parts about the sport/activity of running? Maybe I'm just cynical because running to me has always felt like this weird, niche thing that I enjoyed and that was just for me, not meant to be shared or spread to people outside of the running circle.

I mean he’s spot on. All these club coaches all they know is marathon coaching. All their runners want to tell you how hard a marathon is compared to other races. You tell someone your 40 and run 14:x or 15:x in a 5k and run 90 miles a week, and they will tell you yeah but that is nothing compared to them getting their 3:10, 3:20 BQ and how hard it would be for the 14: 15:x 5k to run a good marathon. It’s pretty stupid honestly. I don’t even know where to start but OP is spot on. The marathon might possibly be the easiest event to train for.