Sarah Crouch - Boston Marathon

Get over yourself, please. For sounding condescending? Wow, you jump on people for the littlest things. Sara is a good National Class runner. She has scratched at the door of bigger things a few times. Appearance fees, sure, but not large amounts by any stretch. Maybe she can improve, but not is she keeps doing reckless things like trying to run a marathon on a stress reaction. Maybe if this was the Olympic Trials or the Olympic games go for it, anything else, foolish.

She posted again today defending her decision, likening it to Michael Jordan playing with the flu.

Yeah, definitely not the same.

At the end of the day, it's up to her to do the calculus on the risk/reward. Zero idea how she thought she could get through a marathon on a stress reaction of the FEMUR. But broadcasting it and defending it leaves me scratching my head

There isn't a shred of objectivity with Sarah's reasoning... her current rational is purely emotional, and 100% expected from someone in her position (pre and post-race). I don't blame her for convincing herself that she should toe the line and go for it. I'm also not surprised with her decision to proceed to the finish (especially with Steve Magness as her coach). This is the kind of drive and determination it takes to become a professional athlete. Athletes of Sarah's caliber are enthusiastically subjecting their bodies to the limits of their physiological limitations... the mentality is groomed for such behavior.

...and this is where the coach is supposed to become the variable that balances the equation.

If Sarah was suitably coached, she would have been more receptive to the objective rational behind pulling out and living to fight another day... all without sacrificing her individual sense of empowerment. How?... Because with a suitable coach she would have been routinely exposed to unbiased evaluation and direct purpose of her training and racing decisions. The process of making training and racing decisions based on objectivity versus subjective emotions would have become a normal part of the decision-making process (for both coach and athlete). Of course, this takes regular rehearsal, and can only develop with regular and consistent application from the coach. Essentially, Sarah would have been prepared to (at least) consider her decisions with a critical and objective perspective rather than a pure (do or die) emotionally charged rational.

Unfortunately, this situation was an unnecessary failure on multiple levels... but at the end of the day, we have an emotionally driven professional athlete paired with an unjustifiably arrogant coach armed with cut/paste knowledge and training application. A desperate coach paired with a desperately emotional athlete is a disaster waiting to happen.

Hopefully both will walk away from this with a strong understanding that "toughness" is meaningless as a stand-alone quality... toughness is an accessory, not a foundation.

Spot on.

+1

Bent crotch wrote:

She finished 2nd American at Boston in 2016 BECAUSE THE REAL AMERICANS RAN THE TRIALS.

She was 1st American in Chicago ONLY BECAUSE CRAGG AND HASAY BOTH DNS.

That’s it.

So what. She earned it. Give credit where it's due.

Curious II wrote:

Get over yourself, please. For sounding condescending? Wow, you jump on people for the littlest things. Sara is a good National Class runner. She has scratched at the door of bigger things a few times. Appearance fees, sure, but not large amounts by any stretch. Maybe she can improve, but not is she keeps doing reckless things like trying to run a marathon on a stress reaction. Maybe if this was the Olympic Trials or the Olympic games go for it, anything else, foolish.

Get over yourself @sswipe. I'm tired of seeing so many hard working athletes bashed by clueless, condescending trolls like you on Letsrun. It was her spring marathon, and any number of us seasoned veterans have been faced with the same tough choice. Sometimes you can push through and succeed, and sometimes you can't. She's been a top American at WMMs for years and earned her spot to be there and get an appearance fee.

Very well-put.

(The word you want is "rationale", instead of "rational")

Ben There wrote:

Very well-put.

(The word you want is "rationale", instead of "rational")

lol... dang it. Thanks. (insert face palm emoji)

rojo wrote:

Curious II wrote:

She only got it last year because of a simultaneous series of fortunate events for her that were highly unlikely to ever reoccur.

She was 6th in Chicago. What were the fortunate series of events other than the field not being deep. I mean it's pretty crazy that flat course WMM has 2:32 get 6th but what were the "series" of events.

Given the fact that US women's marathon is loaded right now - Huddle, Sisson, Cragg, Hasay, Flanagan, Linden, etc. - it's hard to imagine a scenario where someone without the standard doesn't get top 3 on the women's side.

In addition, 10th at Boston was 2:30:32 so the goal wasn't that far out of reach.

Look at Fauble and Ward and their PRs on Monday.

I'm the first to push through a race or a run if I feel pain, that may suggest injury. I sort of get it, and it does go away with time, and I rarely feel it afterwards. I get this thing, you can run "injured" (usually phantom injuries), but knowing you have a stress reaction and then continueing to run on a fracture, in your leg is INSANE, and irresponsible and unforgivable! (I once fractured a finger on a fall when running and I finished my run, but that's different than a femur, and knowing that a fracture is emerging).

I consider it absolutely unprofessional and unforgivable for a elite, a person whose career is dependent on health and serves as a good example to others to just ignore a injury and allow herself to be sidelined for 20 + weeks for a pipe dream of running faster than she ever could.

I found a article by her called, "Hopeful, Hungry and Chasing a Lie: Disordered Eating in Distance Running"

https://www.podiumrunner.com/hopeful-hungry-and-chasing-a-lie_146120?fbclid=IwAR0MLgPd7s6MQJhoKQjOiAQb_9wT8cs7d7OJ0dL-MmP2GOzHpkGErsCH7y0

just reeks of disillusionment. If she has a history of disordered eating at a high level of running and a stress reaction she clearly doesn't know how to real it in. Her coach should have never let her run.

The thing about that article is that it comes across rather hypocritical in places given her Boston race. In particular the section where she specifically states that she has seen a girl running with a broken back and uses that as an example of a bad decision and bad outcome of poor health choices. Running with broken femur because "career" isn't the same, I guess..... spoiler alert - it actually is the same.

Iou wrote:

The thing about that article is that it comes across rather hypocritical in places given her Boston race. In particular the section where she specifically states that she has seen a girl running with a broken back and uses that as an example of a bad decision and bad outcome of poor health choices. Running with broken femur because "career" isn't the same, I guess..... spoiler alert - it actually is the same.

Again proving that it's too easy to be a pro runner in the USA.

Exactly. But I do disagree it's too easy, people get stress fractures for a reason. If this is the norm (running knowing you have a season cancelling injury and still expect to get paid afterwards) I'd consider it irresponsible, then yeah too easy.

Like sure some runners have raced with fractures. Ellie Abrahamson is out this season with a stress fracture, and raced on a fracture, but didn't know it was a fracture and wasn't diagnosed afterwards. After switching over from Triathlon (where she lost a ridiculous ammount of weight from training leading her to fear the female athlete triad), the time on her feet caused the break

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ33bkP-3kY&t=870s

The case where deena kastor broke her foot, I think it was undiagnosed, and spurred on by lack of vitamin of D. But yes, her bone broke and she dropped out, She didn't pain it out to see if she can get her PB.

Getting stress fractures is not unusual, and in cases like the mile, people can unknowingly run through them.

Knowing you'll get one and then go in a race like boston, and blow up there, and still insist on finishing, and criticise people who supported you"Fact is, it’s some of the same folks who were praising my gutsy move to race Chicago less than 2 weeks after quad surgery who are criticizing my rationality now because this one didn’t pan out."

Maybe she would have heard praise from the same people if she took the responsible route and dropped out and waited to recover (maybe 4 weeks later) before racing.