Why do people hate on hobby joggers?

I don't know about Nancy from accounting, but I can tell you that Julie from the run club sure knows about my state championships and NCAA status.

If I go to any run club, I am announced as a special guest and I have a line of people waiting to talk to me after my run. Several offers for coffee and a meal afterwards.

And then the tears start flowing when I tell them I am married.

When I got into my top 5 graduate school, they specifically told me they were very impressed with my student-athlete status. They even made a point during our orientation to point out the number of NCAA athletes they have in the class.

I don't know maybe it's because I work in NYC, but there are a lot of fitness crazed people here and a LOT of runners/joggers. A lot of people and clients want to run with me.

I give advice all the time, nearly everyday and most times to multiple people each day.

I spend quite a lot of time here giving honest advice to people asking for training advice, and ensure that my advice is on a level suitable for each person's individual talent and their commitment to the sport.

110mpw won't work for everyone, and high mileage never worked for me. At most I was doing 70mpw during XC season and during track more around 40-50mpw.

The biggest, and by FAR the biggest problem with hobby joggers is that they are contaminating our sport.

Running is a sport, simple as that.

Yet hobby joggers insist on trying to turn our sport (with a vastly long and rich history) into some idiotic spectacle that is some sick mixture of "fun party!" and "social event."

A lot of hobby joggers are more interested in the socializing aspect than the actual activity of running. They show up in $400 worth of the latest running gear just to run a 40 minute 10k. Major sponsors like Nike or New Balance or Adidas see this and cater to this crowd, creating a worsening cycle by bringing in more clueless hobby joggers who actually have no intention of running for the sake of running. It is always running for some other purpose, e.g., having "fun" or "socializing" or "making new friends" or "checking out girls in tights" or "losing extra pounds."

It's a free country and you can run for whatever reason you want. That's fine. And it's actually nice to talk to the "fun running" crowd compared to some overly-serious semi-elite athlete.

The problem occurs when these "fun runners" start taking running too seriously, and start posting training advice on LRC and try to enter into discussions about elite level running. Sorry, you guys don't know crap and should just shut up and keep hobby jogging with your running clubs instead of running your mouths on LRC.

9/10.

Because they take training 3 times a week so seriously buy all the latest gear and constantly post their achievments on facebook

I'm part of a few running clubs in NYC and am active in them (I am in an absurd number of different NYC running email/chat groups) and I get asked running advice all the time. Most of them from girls in their 20s, which isn't too bad. I'm even asked to coach track sessions from the local high schools or amateur track clubs from time to time, which is hilarious since I know of at least 4 different Olympic runners in NYC and several D1 runners who were faster than me who live in the city and have more experience than I do. Maybe it's because I'm pretty good looking I don't know.

And you're right, I'm not that interesting of a guy. I'm a family man who rarely goes out and doesn't really do much outside of work besides playing with kids and running/lifting weights.

I think you're selling yourself short. Just to make it to D1 and having run there, you have a minimum of 8 years running at a very high level every single day of those 8 years. You have been surrounded by all manner of qualified coaches, sports therapists, trainers and nutritionists who have inundated you in a life of constant running knowledge and training know-how.

Whether you're fast or not, you posses a vast amount of knowledge about proper training methods, nutrition, recovery practices and sports science which you will probably never forget for the rest of your life. You are a gold mine of helpful information and any running club would love to have you regardless of how fast you are.

There is a world of difference between you and the guy who read a Runners World 5K training plan and keeps a running diary.

Just in case you're not convinced, go to the start line of your local 5K race and see how these clowns "warm-up." 90% of them are stretching without having run at all. The ones who did run probably ran 400m at race pace and are doing ridiculous things like squat jumps or some other crap they saw in Rocky IV. Most of them are taking selfies, have some absurdly expensive Nike shoe, few can be seen hydrating and are wearing fanny packs filled with energy gels. Some people are even running with their cell phones strapped to their arm with GPS on, because for some reason they don't trust the chip technology (or they want to post their splits ASAP because all of their followers are eagerly awaiting news of their glorious sub-40m 10k!!!).

formerD1 wrote:

Wow, you made a "yer gay" joke.

If you were on LRC back in the day, you would know we had groupies. There used to be a fair contingent of HS/college girls who used to stalk D1-inbound runners.

Yeah, a lot of "hot" female distance runners...

I never said they were hot...

But seriously, at my D1, we had some smokers on the XC team. And the ones that stalked the D1 runners were the slower ones who could never run in college but ran in HS. Plenty of cuties there.

I never liked girl runners because running in general brings out the dirtiest and ugliest in you (in a physical sense) and so I found girls who ran to be physically repulsive. Sweat, snot, spit and whatever else is coming out of your body does not an attractive mate make.

was fast now slow wrote:

formerD1 wrote:

I give advice all the time, nearly everyday and most times to multiple people each day.

Okay, you're trolling, right? You "give advice" about running to multiple people a day? Trust me, if there were anything remotely interesting about you, running would NOT come up in conversation multiple times a day. If it does, believe me, people dread talking to you.

I actually hope this is a troll, its pretty sad otherwise.

Made up BS wrote:

pin racer wrote:

There are a ton of races in my area that I actively avoid because they are dominated by hobby joggers and unwelcoming to competitive runners.

Who is making you feel unwelcome? What, EXACTLY, do they do to make you not go to the races?

Admit it, no one has ever said anything to you, one way or the other, which is actually your problem; the fatties aren't bowing down to your "amazing" 15min 5k ability, so you are upset. When you grow up, you can eat at the adult table during Xmas dinner. Until then, I am pretty sure you will keep blaming other people for your problems with women.

Truth. Being awesome at running, means your body type will be a bit different then other awesome sports people. In high school, you probably want to weigh more then the girls you want to ask out... Then when you're older, it's tough when you're bobbleheaded, emaciated, last-notch-on-the-sports-watch wearing ass is trying to pick up the ladies at the local 5k..

I see formerD1 is really getting after it trying to make a name for himself as a premier lrc troll. Keep after it bud. Don't let anyone tell you that spending hours and hours on an obscure anonymous message board cultivating a troll persona is a waste of time. Look at what all it has accomplished for jamin!

I think it's the old there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I fear.

There's no one who will attack the obese like a former fatty. Similarly, nobody can hate on a hobby jogger like someone who is a faster but slowly losing speed with age and life

EZ10Miler wrote:

The LR conundrum.

If you don't do anything, you're a fat slobby couch slug.

If you go to the gym you're a cross fit, gym rat lunk head.

If you do tris you are a poser, a gear fool that's terrible at 3 sports.

If you run slowly you're a hobby jogger.

If you are elite and don't win, you're lazy.

If you are elite and run fast, you're dirty.

QFT

It takes about 15 seconds to reply but thanks for the concern.

I go straight home after a race if running alone. If running with friends we take a few photos and go home.

Why would I converse with some random nobody after a race when I could better use that time to talk to my friends or go home to my family?

I go straight home after a race if running alone. If running with friends we take a few photos and go home.

Why would I converse with some random nobody after a race when I could better use that time to talk to my friends or go home to my family?

Yes because I have friends in those clubs and It takes little to no effort to tell someone in my club that they need to run more miles or copy and paste a 5x1000m workout.