Jean's Marines: What a crock

Personal note: In 2001 my wife ran the MC marathon her first marathon or race for that matter. Post 9/11 it was very emotional. Runners were chanting go USA as they ran in the tunnels and overpasses. Around the Pentagon there was dead silence. Runner's World had in an article that snippers were on the buildings. The race was almost cancelled. I was not a runner at the time. It hit home with me the next June I ran the RR marathon in SD. In 2002 I went back to watch MCM again and ran it in 2003(I live in So. Ca.). It was sad to read about the cheaters. As stated on other posts, what's the point. A sad day for the sport of running.

Bashing cancer cure charities? wrote:

Does anyone care to explain why there is so much bashing directed at a Leukemia charity?

I don't know the history of Team in Training, but I know so mid-3:00 marathoners who have done it simply as a way to do something positive for helping cancer research while training seriously for a marathon.

Is there a reason so many of you are pissing on Team in Training?

I agree, the TNT runners I know wouldn't even think of cutting the course and if they couldn't make the cut off they'd find a marathon (NY, etc) with no cutoff time. Lumping them in with this Jeans group is unfair. The only evidence any TNT people used a shortcut is from this Jean fellow, I'd be very surprised if TNT has some sort of policy to cut the course, if they do, then criticize them. TNT runners may (and I stress MAY) be slower than you, but they're often new to the sport, trying hard and raising money for leukemia, I just don't see why you wouldn't want to support this.

longboarder wrote:

Runner's World had in an article that snippers were on the buildings. The race was almost cancelled.

Hell yes it was almost cancelled. All those snippers may have dropped their scissors and hurt someone really bad. In fact, snippers are the #1 cause of injuries on the quilting teams here in the states. What the f u c k is a snipper? You F U C K I N G retard!

Nice job on that overreaction.

Bashing cancer cure charities? wrote:

Does anyone care to explain why there is so much bashing directed at a Leukemia charity?

...

Is there a reason so many of you are pissing on Team in Training?

i think the reason is that in one of the articles on "jeans marines" jean says, essentially, "everybody does it, TnT is doing the same thing." (not a real quote, but it sums up her initial reaction).

jean point the finger at you guys in an effort to divert attention away from her groups cheating.

Jody wrote:

I don't know but I've been told

Canadian poontang is mighty cold

Sound Off

One Two

Sound Off

three four (miles short)

Beautiful, thank you for making my day.

Since it has been pulled, I won't make another reference to a Catholic priest. Actually, those guys do enough pulling for everyone, so I guess my smart aleck comments can be taken to another board.

"Pardon my cackle.

Not to be mistaken with hackle, which is what a lot of other middle-aged women got up the last time I wrote about the zealotry of recreational marathon runners who seem to believe, if they just keep pounding the pavement, and fancying themselves hard-core athletes, they'll never grow old and never die."

"this posture is to be expected of people who perceive themselves as athletes. I cover athletes as part of my living. And you, marathon ladies, are not athletes. Anymore than I, who love to shoot pool, am Minnesota Fats."

"I wouldn't make such a big deal out of the cheating if they didn't make such a big deal out of the running."

Thanks Repairman! I recently completed my first marathon with TNT. Sounds like Jean's Marines wants to divert attention(classic PR move!)and tarnish the reputation of others.

For those who don't know anything about Team in Training, please keep your negative comments to yourself. Just because one apple is rotten to the core (Corps) doesn't make the rest rotten.

There's no photo of Rosie, but I bet she's over 200 lbs and a chain smoker. I envision her as Rosanne Barr, only uglier!

She's got a point about Jean though.

I don't really have a problem with TNT per se, but have noticed that they often get preferential treatment...ie a certain number of spaces are reserved for them in races with a limited amount of spaces. Not sure how fair that is.

Also, they won't cheer for anyone but themselves, which isn't exactly endearing.

As far as raising money, good on them.

Not sure about the special treatment you mention. Didn't get any in my marathon.

About the cheering? That might vary by location. Our Central Ohio group cheers for everyone -- TNT or not.

Here is her latest article taking on the cheaters.

There has to be a quote of the day in there somewhere.

========================================================

Women running on empty

Ernest marathoners are athletes? Please

Nov. 12, 2005. 01:00 AM

ROSIE DIMANNO

Pardon my cackle.

Not to be mistaken with hackle, which is what a lot of other middle-aged women got up the last time I wrote about the zealotry of recreational marathon runners who seem to believe, if they just keep pounding the pavement, and fancying themselves hard-core athletes, they'll never grow old and never die.

This, even though Marathon Running For Idiots is a killer and, with distressing frequency, lethal also for those who make a New Age religion of it. There was another sad casualty at the Toronto Marathon this year. And it should not be forgotten that the cult of this 42K ordeal arose from the legendary expiry of Pheidippides, who hotfooted it from Marathon to Athens to deliver news of victory over Persia. Then promptly keeled over.

The historian Herodotus, who recounted that story for posterity — even though it may be merely myth — surely never envisioned the day when thousands upon thousands of marathoners would indulge in public spectacles requiring the closing of arterial roads and the investiture of medals for everyone who completes the course, regardless of time and finishing order.

The conceit is that while everyone can do it if they train and try — thus the emergence of terribly earnest running clubs that prey on the insecurities of primarily middle-age ladies — it is also a profoundly me-applauding accomplishment, worthy of certificates and honours and group hugs. They're so special.

Now — this is where the cackling comes in — it appears that setting the bar even that low, just finishing the damn thing, was insufficient "democratization'' of what began as a torturous elite endeavour. In a complete reversal of all that defines sports, we now get cheating as a purportedly acceptable tactic on the road to crossing the tape and feeling self-embracingly good about oneself.

Dr. Jean Marmoreo, founder of Toronto-based JeansMarines — a running group of women who train together for the annual U.S. Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. — has admitted to facilitating things so some of her slower acolytes could complete the race last week. Marmoreo encouraged a rump of runners, and runner-walkers, and walkers — because just putting one foot in front of the other is now apparently a sport and I'm the Princess of Wales — to digress from the route at the 16-kilometre mark, rejoining it at the 22-km mark. Cutting across The Mall lopped a good chunk off the course and helped ensure that the pussies a) reached the 14th St. Bridge within five hours of the start, as mandated to stay in the race, and b) finished the whole thing in less than the seven-hour cutoff.

How startling it must have been to these ersatz marathoners that suddenly there were precise rules involved and that sport, inherently demanding, is not about accommodating the lowest common denominator and meaningless ribbons to everybody; that there is, despite our society's attempts to discourage the reality, a difference between winning and losing, between success and failure.

There were reports yesterday that race organizers may not welcome JeansMarines back next year, for violating the rules and damaging the integrity of the sport. Bounced from Washington — that's quite an achievement for these Canadian women. Not even our oft-provocative ambassador to D.C. has suffered such an ignominy.

At first, Marmoreo seemed not to have entirely grasped the wrongness of her actions. While asking those who did not complete the entire course to return their medals, Marmoreo also obfuscated and rationalized mightily in an email sent to all JeansMarines members, writing that what she did had been "perceived as cheating.''

Perhaps this posture is to be expected of people who perceive themselves as athletes. I cover athletes as part of my living. And you, marathon ladies, are not athletes. Anymore than I, who love to shoot pool, am Minnesota Fats.

Athletes do cheat, of course. Mostly they do it by taking proscribed performance-enhancing drugs. But they don't cheat by running diagonally from first base to third base or hitching a ride — as Rosie Ruiz famously did — in the Boston Marathon.

It's telling that Marmoreo puts the emphasis on achieving dreams — as if this would ameliorate the fraud, although the group did announce several reform initiatives yesterday.

Dreams shmeams. Running as some kind of New Age therapy for the middle-aged-and-counting is delusional. It doesn't make you a finer person, although it can make you a much more tiresome person.

I wouldn't make such a big deal out of the cheating if they didn't make such a big deal out of the running.

I've had it up to here with the touchy-feely ethos, the otherworldly spirituality, which has devolved to running as a vehicle for female empowerment. Oh, I know all about the attendant virtues of physical challenges to self, although my instinct when confronted with nirvana-tinged testimonials from Baby Boomers Who Run is to conclude that they've got too much time on their hands and worship at the altar of their glorious selves.

Spending time in the company of lay marathoners — which is the price I pay for having two running fiends as close friends who are all the time yammering about it — has rendered me a reluctant witness to this particular affliction/addiction. These same two women, not content with rising at 6 a.m. to burst all endorphin-primed on the darkened autumn streets of Toronto, are now forking over good money to attend an elite theory-of-running class in the evening.

They don't do anything in half-measure; that's their nature. One admitted to getting dreadfully sick during a recent marathon, retching repeatedly, but gallantly struggling on to finish the course. This strikes me as hugely unwise for any 50-year-old and not worth the candle. But it would never have crossed her mind to take a shortcut.

I think both these smashing dames are in thrall to a post-feminist cult of running, a Stepford Marathon delirium that lures with the unattainable — everlasting youth and beauty, the reversal of time, bodies that will never erode. One, who has most recently become absorbed with the idea of doing a triathlon, is definitely in need of an intervention, just like they do for coke addicts.

Thing is, I'd have to catch her first.

And Rosie don't run.

Rules

I don't care if Rosie has never run a step, her column nailed the problem of recreational joggers taking over the sport and turning it into their own mass quest for self-esteem. She. Is. Awesome.

[k] wrote:

Charity runners make me sick.

Out.

are you looking for attention again

If he's a charity runner, sure he is. He's just missing the usual defensive tone....

I wish people would stop thinking TNT is the holy grail. They also cheated! Here is accounts from a witness.

http://www.runnersweb.com/running/rw_news_frameset.html?http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20051103_MCM_Charity_Runners.html

And the race director is currently trying to weed the TNT cheaters out. There is even a coach from TNT on runnersworld investigating which chapter cut the course.