so I wrote a paper for my advanced composition class describing the Letsrun message board subculture. since you all helped, i thought i'd post it. enjoy, and i don't really care what you think since you're not the ones grading it.
“Where Your Dreams Become Reality”
Distance runners, I am told by those who should know, are a strange breed. Solitary and aloof, they shun human company in favor of the long and lonely road. Occasionally they travel in packs, but they are most often seen in their natural state: alone, emaciated and sunburned, shirtless and with flimsy shorts bordering on the indecent, sinewy legs churning out mile after mile over the hot asphalt. These are not the recreational joggers, the fun-run types. These are the hard core, and they do not mix with normal folk.
Somewhere along the ethereal strands that form our internet exists a place where distance runners of all ages and abilities commingle freely, where Olympians and World Record holders hold conversation with average Joes, a sort of cyberspatial Mecca for endurance athletics. A website devoted completely to the long distance runner, Letsrun.com has the air of a small town café, the kind that boasts “World’s Best Cup of Coffee,” or “Finest Boiled Peanuts in White County.” Such pretentious claims seem absurd coming from a greasy truck stop in the middle of nowhere, and the webpage’s title banner: “Where Your Dreams Become Reality” echoes the feel that this place must have delusions of grandeur. The home page is relatively simple, with columns of links to articles about running and runners, some going back years. It is not the articles that I have come for, however.
Near the edge of the page, an inconspicuous link reads: “For our World Famous Message Board, click here.” I click, and a list of current discussions appears.
As I scan the topics, I am struck by the variety of subjects. A thread entitled “Post Nuptial Shutoff” seems to consist of older married men complaining about the lack of spousal affection. Another, called “How Many Megamillions Lottery Tickets Have All of You Bought Today?” begins as a simple survey, but quickly degenerates into a heated discussion of probability and game theory. Apparently people from all walks of life frequent the boards, because some of these folks seem to have degrees in advanced mathematics. There are other topics, ranging from “Hillary Clinton Talkin’ Black in Kentucky Church” to “Foreign Travel: What Do I Need to Do?” to “Looking to Buy a Hybrid.” People come here to ask advice about living in San Francisco, to discuss music, and to talk college basketball. And, of course, to talk running.
What I realize after following the “What is Your Favorite Sandwich” discussion for several minutes is that this is not just a place where distance runners get together to talk about their passion. It is a place where people come for discussion and entertainment and advice, and most of them happen to be distance runners. And with that realization, the characters begin to gel as individuals in my mind. Sporting names like Malmo, Spelling and Grammer Police, and MR CHEST, the regular patrons of this grimy pit stop along the information highway have all the homogeneity of the passengers on Noah’s ark. Everybody has an opinion on everything, it’s usually different from everyone else’s, and it always requires that vitriol and abuse be poured on anyone who disagrees.
In fact, as far as I can tell, nobody agrees with anybody else on any topic. Well, no, let me take that back. There are two things everybody agrees on: they all hate the person who calls himself the430miler, and they all hate the Gallowalkers.
The430miler is certainly an interesting character. To someone unfamiliar with message board etiquette, it may be difficult to understand all of the animosity he receives from his fellow posters.
When asked, regular visitor Sold on Selling said: “Like I have said many times before: he's either a creation of a person or group of people who are extremely bored or the result of an extremely deranged and immature teenager/young adult.”
Another longtime contributor by the name of Kele said: “I just can't understand how a person could so consistently pump out retarded post after retarded post every day for months without getting bored of it. Despite this, it is hard to ignore the fact that his posts are so perfectly asinine...he truly is an enigma.”
Perhaps most telling is the label that is most often assigned to the430miler and others like him: troll. I am not sure about the origin of this term, but it refers to a person who uses the anonymity of the forum to make outrageous or intentionally antagonistic statements for the purpose of generating amusing discussion. I am not sure why this is considered a bad thing, but one poster, Trollie McSockpuppet, has devoted his life to sniffing out the pretenders. Of the430miler, he says:
“I still suspect that he is a comic working on a higher level then the rest of us.”
It is certainly true that the430miler seems to be intentionally antagonistic. One particularly provocative post eventually led several people to call for his permanent dismissal from the forum: “i have no weakness, im f***ing stronger than you. come and race me, i aint scared and you’ll notice my muscle and throatdog attitude when i go to the starting line. im physiologically superior to all my opponents.”
Kublai Khan sums up the rationale behind the collective hatred for the poster with the “throatdog attitude”: “The problem isn’t that he comes on here and says all these ridiculous things. Stupid and irrelevant comments make up 75 % of what is said on this board anyway. The problem is that you have what is basically just an average high school runner coming on here, pulling nonsense out of his ass and trying to pass it off as gospel truth. He thinks he farts perfume and shits gold bricks, but really he’s nothing.”
The Gallowalkers are a tougher nut to crack, because, as far as I can tell, none of them exist on this board. From what I can see, a Gallowalker is anyone who goes and signs up for a race, particularly a marathon, with the intention of walking part or all of the distance. They get their name from popular coach and motivational speaker Jeff Galloway, whose training program encourages beginning runners to take frequent walk breaks in their running.
This is especially offensive to the serious runners on the board because Jeff Galloway was once an Olympic marathoner. The general feeling is that Galloway has sold out his elite principles in order to peddle a collection of pap and feel-good rhetoric to people who don’t know better.
Dougruns26 explained, “What I dislike are those people who are selling this program that promotes mediocrity and the outrageous goal of run/walking a marathon when you have no physical right to do so.”
Unbalanced Angry Guy added, “They will never know the unhealthy emotional satisfaction of shaking hands with the guy that you just kicked into the ground in the last 200 meters of a race and telling him ‘nice race dude.’”
But despite all the invective that is thrown at these and other individuals, many of the discussions are genial and a few are even heartwarming.
One of my favorites is the Henry Rono thread. Henry is a 55 year old overweight former alcoholic. Last year, he decided to throw off alcoholism in order to try to get in shape. Since then he has posted his training log on the board, and the encouragement he has received has been overwhelming. A man from New York who owns a shoe store has been supplying Henry with gear for free, mailing everything to Albuquerque at his own expense. Others have offered verbal encouragement and advice, holding Henry accountable for losing weight and running everyday. And only two weeks ago, Henry ran his first half-marathon since he returned to training, finishing first in his age group. It is great to read the daily updates of Henry’s training, and to hear how much he has improved. What started out as a personal plan to return to the kind of fitness he had as a youth has become a crusade of inspiration.
“What motivates Henry to run now? I think that it's in his blood - that life and movement are forever entwined for Henry,” he said, giving voice to the deep and secret compulsion that so many distance runners feel. He speaks, not only for himself, but for all the runners on the board. At last count, there were over 2400 posts on the Henry Rono discussion.
Another of the more colorful characters is Flagpole Willy. While I have no picture of him, in my mind’s eye I see an aging ex-surfer, a hipster with a flowery Hawaiian shirt and Birkenstocks and a long grey ponytail. And maybe some rimless rectangular bifocals. Flagpole Willy, or Flagpole for short, considers himself some kind of guru or life councilor. He dispenses advice freely on a wide range of topics, and calls everybody “brother” or “man.”
And it is Flagpole’s experience with the Letsrun.com culture that helps me to understand this unconventional mix of brotherhood and animosity.
“Most posters at Letsrun believe themselves to be superior runners to people who post at other running message boards,” he told me. “They think that people outside their group are idiots or are wasting their time with the activity they chose instead of the one we're involved in. This is true for people who drive Jeeps or are musicians (even specific instruments within that group), clog dance, ride horses, and on and on. A person's group is always the best thing and if someone is not involved in that group, then they suck.”
What the posters at Letsrun.com have created is the ultimate exclusive society. It defines itself positively, as a collection of serious long distance runners. But it also defines itself negatively: not like the Gallowalkers, not like the430miler, not like any person whose opinions on whatever topic we happen to be debating differ from mine. It is a place filled with discord because it is a place frequented mostly by individuals accustomed to isolation and independence. Social skills are not well developed by long solitary runs. And yet, there is camaraderie too. In the story of Henry Rono, and in the countless other threads where a youngster needs advice or an injured athlete asks for sympathy, hundreds of fellow runners are ready to offer their support and encouragement and experience. There are ties that bind stronger and tighter than any political ideologies or music tastes or sports team allegiances have the power to break. Each poster in this forum has felt the obsession, the call that Henry feels deep within his legs, the irresistible urge to punish oneself daily in pursuit of elusive and transient glory. Each person here has made a sacrifice of their flesh, has poured out the strength of their bodies on the hot asphalt altar of the lonely highway until the well was empty, and then come back for more the next day. Each one of us understands that primal desire to triumph over his own weakness, and it is this common compulsion that can occasionally transcend the petty differences and draw together so contrary a group of independent spirits. Letsrun.com is a community because, like Henry, running is in their blood – life and movement are forever entwined for everyone.