Today's crankiness is from our pal Mindy. Since we often seem to vent on the dippiness of other runners, we'd like to vent on the civilians for a change. You know, the people who ask 'How long was this marathon?' or my favorite, 'How long was the 5K?' We runners don't expect non-runners to be clueless, we just wish they wouldn't be stupid. Oh well, as John-Paul Sartre once said, 'Hell is other people'.
Take it over, Mindy:
"What is the deal with the co-worker who asks you after the biggest marathon of your life that you spent countless weeks training for.... "Didja finish?" I'm sorry, did I - did I what? What did you just ask me!? I feel like ABC is to blame. You know, the unforgettable scene from the Ironman (JM on YouTube) with Julie Moss crawling to the finish line around midnight, incontinent, blind, mumbling. That image is somehow seared into the brain of every Wide World of Sports-Watching fanatic out there. And it's bad for business!"
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2 comments:
A peeve of mine as well. Did I finish? Finish? I could have walked it and finished. That's not what it was about at all...
If you can come up with an answer that is not overtly snarky, please let me know. I'm still working on it, and mostly just holding my tongue.
Although, come of think of it, the people that ask this are generally the ones who also like to engage in conversation about the weather. And not in a fun meteorological phenomena kind of way, but in a banal hope-to-comiserate type of way.
Yes, I agree, people who ask 'did you finish?' or 'how long was the race?' are probably not overly interested in the answer, it's just a sidetrip from the usual chatter about the weather.
Once I was asked 'what did you do it for?', which I soon found out meant 'what charity are you running for?', as if they couldn't imagine exercising for any reason beyond raising money for a cause. I think their heart was in the right place, but their brain wasn't. Anyway, the puzzled look I got when I told this co-worker that I wasn't necessarily raising money was priceless. Charity run/walks are great, I just think some folks don't (and I hate this phrase, but I'll use it anyway) 'get it' when it comes to just running a race for the run itself. And of course, we finished, because we trained for the damn thing, and 'not finishing' ain't gonna happen.
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