SportsPsych wrote:
There is huge difference between the accomplishment of completing a marathon and the sport of racing a marathon. The difference is the same as pitching in the World Series and playing catch with your son. Elite athletes realize this and are insulted when non-competitive people try to play off their activities as sport. These people who walk marathons are no more 'runners' than I am a 'soccer player' because I'm on a Parks and Rec team. Any race director who includes a walking division in a marathon has a deep and fundamental lack of respect for the sport. (He is, after all, called the "RACE" director, not the director of happy-fun-time-activities-for-all)
If joggers enjoy doing there marathon in 5 hours though, how else are they going to do it? Doing a marathon as a walker is no different from your Parks and Rec soccer team, it just happens to be taking place at the same time as other's are racing the marathon. What's wrong with that? Running is an individual sport, and I do it because I like challenging myself to go farther than I've gone before. I also like competing, racing against other people. I don't see how a bunch of slow people are interfering with my ability to do that. I've run 5k road races where people have finished in over an hour. But I've still gotten both of those things that I said I look for in racing, a group of people I can compete against, and a group of people to help push me further to my limits.