People run marathons because of herd culture

Thanks for telling us about it.

Me neither. As a former sprinter, I think marathons are stupid.

I dislike the shoe and apparel companies, supported by publications like Runner's World, that push expensive and perhaps needless items on naive runners. For example, in a recent issue of Runner's World there is a "go-to" endorsement of a down vest priced at $148 for "those cold (but not frigid) days". In my experience, if I wore a down vest while running in even "frigid" (<32F?) weather, I'd overheat. In my opinion, such an item provides no value added to a run. People can easily enjoy running with inexpensive gear so long as they focus on a good pair of shoes. Why hype all the latest and greatest name brand fluff gear that only serves to create a barrier to entry into the sport, and to create more material stuff?

People post to running message boards because of NERD culture.

Magazines are, at their core, advertising delivery vehicles. They exist to connect consumers with ads that are relevant to a chosen interest or lifestyle. Full stop. Any and all journalistic excellence is designed and promoted to pull the eyeballs to the ads.

It’s popular because it’s the longest mainstream running event. It’s an Olympic event that pretty much anyone can complete. You can do fairly well and beat much naturally faster people with the right amount of training.

It’s also not an easy accomplishment and takes a lot of preparation. Most sedentary people under 60 could finish a 5K with no training. Most could jog a 5K without walking with a month of training. It would take the average sedentary person at least 6 months to finish a marathon without walking, potentially a year or more in many cases.

The distance an average person chooses to participate in doesn't matter. Just getting out there and doing something physical is most important. Any other observational statistic is just a mute one. My only reasons for not marathoning is that it's too time consuming.

It's more complicated than that. Sure, some people run for shallow reasons. But for some, it's deeper than that. Read the book Running and Being by Dr. George Sheehan. It's about why people run and the philosophy of running (yes, that's actually a thing).

I had a busy day and wasn’t able to run until after work yesterday. I was dreading the run since I was mentally drained even though I typically enjoy running.

I told myself that I could go as slow as I wanted as long as I finished 10 miles. It ended up being extremely enjoyable. I do not get the same joy out of 800M repeats. Hence I’m partial to the marathon.

Quite the opposite. Oprah heard that I had run several marathons and in a fit of lust and passion decided she had to do one, too.

Yeah I enjoy long runs too but when I have to do them week after week and hit a high-ish mileage consistently for months on end it gets tedious, time consuming and tiring.

Maybe I'm different but I don't want to just complete a marathon, I want to achieve a time that is somewhat in line with my other PBs. Anything less just feels like a waste of time.

That's usually an excuse to stay in your comfort zone. It's not as rare as you'd hope.

I stood next to Oprah at the starting line at the 94 Marine Corps Marathon. It was raining, and Steadman was there holding an umbrella for her. She was shorter than I had expected. She didn’t do as poorly as you would think, about a 4:30. Our finishing certificate was signed by FloJo. This was before she died.

Honestly this is a great shootpost, well done

It may surprise you, but most "slow" marathoners have their time goals. I know an old lady who ran her first marathon in her 60s. She was ecstatic when she finished under 5 hrs.

True but not entirely, I think if someones best racing distance is a marathon then it makes sense but many are motivated to do it because of recognition even though they would be better at a mile or shorter race that doesnt get the credit, but equally as hard work

Literally any race distance is a challenge in some way. I'll agree that anything under 200m is more about form and technique over raw effort, but the training to race one at a high level takes high effort.

Being longer doesn't make something inherently harder. A 16mi long run for me at moderate effort is way less painful than pumping out hard 400m repeats any day.

The marathon is less predictable I'll give you that, because running over 2 hours allows time for a lot of things to go wrong. But, I've had short races that went poorly/stellar as well, nothing is guaranteed in athletics at any distance.

Ok, warm running gear is useful. Maybe you've never lived anywhere with weeks <0F with 20+mph winds. As a high schooler I would have loved some decent gear instead of making due with a snow coat. I do have a running vest that I used on <10 F days, one of my friends works for brooks so I got the gear half off basically, and having that gear was nice.

Though, not having any trail or true snow shoes meant sometimes 6min/mi effort was like 7:30 pace. Visiting my family for a month this winter was fun in some ways, but made running difficult. I had forgotten what roughing it in ice/snow/altitude/wind was like.

I'll agree gear is marketed excessively, but what do you expect companies to do. I mean their not gonna say only 10% of the running population needs cold gear, cause they want to sell it. Its the same reason the Nike website calls the zoom fly 4 a stability shoe, which is arguably more devious.