I am easily annoyed I suppose, but here is something the sort of irks me. I hate it when I go to a cross country meet and I see athletes walking around, warming up in, racing in etc. track spikes that are designed for the middle distance and sometimes even sprint events on a track, 100m to 400m. Has anyone actually raced a cross country race in a track shoe? How is it even remotely comfortable? Not only that, you are destroying the shoe itself, and probably hurting yourself and risking injury. I would imagine that if someone were to do it once, and they were not an idiot, they would not do it again. Why do people do this? More oftem than not, they are from teams that aren't very good, and they themselves are slow. More likely than not, neither the athletes nor their coaches know better. And then they run on the concrete or asphalt sections of the course and I can hear their metal spikes and hard plastic soles grinding against the ground with a cacauphonous crunch. Over the course of a few races, they ruin a pair of perfectly good track spikes that could be used later in the year.
I do not mean to sound like a jerk. I realize that not everyone can afford another pair of shoes for racing, even though a pair of waffles costs like 40 bucks. Regardless, I see nothing wrong with wearing trainers in a race, and I won't look down on you if yo do so. And I do not mean to sound like I have a superiority complex, because I believe our sport shold be as inclusive as possible, regardless of experience or skill. This just annoys the f*** out of me.