NYT article on the other victims of marathon training

reminds me of my early running days....if my wife couldn't sleep, she would mumble 'tell me about your training'.

glad we are still together. these days i run much more & talk about it much less.

jstallman wrote:

I'm an editor at The New York Times

lol

yet the link to the story is a tinyurl?

He is, actually

The problem is not running or the marathon... it's the obsession. Obsession about anything can be amusing from a distance or annoying when it's your spouse or co-worker... whether it's the couch-potato slob who decks his house in Steelers' paraphernalia and wastes $$$$ on season tix or the wannabe jock in the local softball rec-league.

Just what I would expect from the NYT.

I'd say this article reminds me of why I don't subscribe to Runners World. So many self-righteous, narrow minded, braggarts who seem completely unaware (or indignant) to the people they are surrounded by. The above poster talking about obsession has it right. However, I think there was one very big point that the writer didn't acknowledge in this article that I would like more people to talk about. Why is this obsession so prevalent with joggers?

I really don't have much of an idea about this myself, but I'm wondering if these people never really played sports as a kid/young adult. Now that they are competing (read: participating) in the hardest sporting event they can imagine, they feel like a total bad ass and now they feel the need to tell the world about the flavors in their fuel belt. Am I way off here?

One more thing about the article. I think it focused way too much on runners being douches in the general sense rather than the real strains on a relationship when training like a high level distance runner:

I have no time for you, I need to go to bed now because i have to run at 6:30 tomorrow morning, I'm too tired to have sex with you, etc, etc.

Then again, I have a completely skewed opinion because I care about people that run fast and train smart (i.e. not doing back to back long runs..wft!?), not the Everyman. The masses probably don't give a crap about that.

i feel really bad for the wife of the guy who lives on the upper-east side and can afford the luxury of buying a $900 electric muscle stimulator.

Talk about a white collar runner...geez.

google wrote:

i feel really bad for the wife of the guy who lives on the upper-east side and can afford the luxury of buying a $900 electric muscle stimulator.

Talk about a white collar runner...geez.

She will really be pissed when she finds out what muscle he is stimulating!!

I start to feel bad when I go out. Im what I would concider a halfway decent runner (not amazing in my own eyes), but those around me (my co-workers and such) that know how much I run seem to make a big deal about my accomplishments. They act like Im the coolest thing since sliced bread.

And I enjoy talking about running, but not every second of every day. It seems when ever we go out drinking my running always becomes the topic of discussion. and I kind of get sick of talking about it.

aging recreational runner wrote:

The problem is not running or the marathon... it's the obsession. Obsession about anything can be amusing from a distance or annoying when it's your spouse or co-worker... whether it's the couch-potato slob who decks his house in Steelers' paraphernalia and wastes $$$$ on season tix or the wannabe jock in the local softball rec-league.

Yep.

A problem with running (and even worse, triathlon)is that it attracts obsessive-compulsive types. They get to obsess over the minutia of your training plans and workout data, and convince themselves it's a positive thing.

Good article, thanks for posting it. The Times does a pretty good job of covering running (both recreational and elite), relative to most other big media outlets. Whatever happened to Gina Kolata's Personal Best column -- is it still running?

I think the article might be painting with too broad a brush.

Expense wise, running isn't that bad. No one needs a muscle stimulator or tread mill (unless you live in North Dakota). I have run in the same pair of running shorts for the past year and buy new shoes about once every 6 weeks. Race fees average out to less than $50 a month. So, I probably spend @$125 a month on an activity that I do every day. Compared to golf it is a bargain. One nice day of golf can easily run $125+.

And for runners that are new to the sport, it is easy to get self absorbed. But there are plenty of us that keep an intense training schedule and show up for work just like everyone else. It seems like the people in the article would be obsessed with something else if they weren't running.

That treadmill guy in the Times picture can't be too busy. He must still have time to golf. There is a golf bag in the background. I guess it could be his wife's.

drinking and running wrote:

I start to feel bad when I go out. Im what I would concider a halfway decent runner (not amazing in my own eyes), but those around me (my co-workers and such) that know how much I run seem to make a big deal about my accomplishments. They act like Im the coolest thing since sliced bread.

And I enjoy talking about running, but not every second of every day. It seems when ever we go out drinking my running always becomes the topic of discussion. and I kind of get sick of talking about it.

That's cool that people think so much of your running. A lot of people I know don't care about my running, the ones that do will ask me how training/racing is going - but more just out of politeness.

The only people I can really talk to about running are people that are in the sport.

If he were not obsessed about this, it would be something else and maybe something more costly or less healthy.

The muscle stimulator is silly.

the guy ran the nycm in 3:49 last year. to basically throw away his family life to run that crappy is rather pathetic.

I thought the article was good and certainly marathon training does consume a large amount of time and dedication and family members do bear the brunt of this passion. However many of the people posting here seem to think that running has a preponderance of obsessive-compulsive personalities but I would argue that it is no much more so than any other sport (golf, tennis, etc.) and not even more so than other hobbies that people spend their time on (stamp collecting, fishing, boating). I also don't think a generalization such as saying a lot of these middle-aged runners are so obsessed because they never were good athletes in their earlier years is accurate. The real tragedy is that for a lot of obsessvive-compulsive people their primary hobby or athletic endeavor is the only thing they feel comfortable talking about. Perhaps the OC peronality really suffers from some form of social anxiety???!!!

I agree; the article did not live up to what it was billed as--that is, focusing on the true strains to a relationship which occur when training at a high level for a marathon. I'd be interested in possibly seeing a followup article which focuses on that.

muscle shaker wrote:

the guy ran the nycm in 3:49 last year. to basically throw away his family life to run that crappy is rather pathetic.

lol, my thoughts exactly brother.