Sloooow.
I'm watching a show called Extreme Weight Loss. This episode, at the ladies 3 month weigh-in, her trainer tells her 3 month from now he wants her to run a marathon. A marathon!
A few weeks before the marathon, she gets a meniscus tear. Doctor says she can still run. Before she starts, she says the furthest she has run so far is 10 miles. 10 miles!
I don't know why I watch these shows, they drive me batty. She ended up finishing in 6 hr 39. I'm guessing it is more for a show of endurance, but still, there has to be a risk of so much damage.
</rant>
They do make it look so easy -- anyone can do it, right? I suppose that the truth is, many people can go from couch to marathon, but it isn't easy. The programs don't really show the pain, or what happens afterwards.
Oh please. If anyone ever comes on here or had come on the old RWOL forum and talked about going from couch to marathon in a few months and finishing in 6:39, he/she would have been met by a chorus of
WTG YOU MARATHONER YOU!!!!!
WAY TO HANG IN THERE YOU MARATHONER YOU!!!!!
Everyone is critical of that stuff until someone posts about it and then it's a love fest which just makes that person think they did the most marvelous thing ever.
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
well if that poor girl were a poster on here I'd congratulate her. But I'd also be thinking it was wrong and dumb.
I hate the premise of that show though, so i feel you Coralie. Exactly the wrong way to achieve sustainable weight loss, not to mention train to run races.
Amazonian Princess
Deleted.
I can. I will. I am.
Duplicate
Coralie, I'd like to rant with you: I know the episode to which you refer and it actually had me in a funk at first - here was this woman who outweighed me at the start of the show running a marathon in less than a year while I'm plateaued at 4 miles for my "long run" ten months in. Made me want to stick my head in a bucket of ice cream until my hubby pointed out "she's at least 15 years younger". I think your point may be that the show had her risking harm by running a marathon on an injury, when she wasn't prepared, so she could have a moment of triumph, and you are a wonderful person to be concerned. It seems the reveal at the end is really what it's all about, when they dress them in hootchie gear and everyone can ooh and ahh. I should be more supportive of someone on TV who's struggling with weight issues too, and I promise I'll work at it, but I'm flat out jealous that I can't take a year off to just to exercise and spend a big ole Wal Mart gift card. Whew! Sorry that was ugly, but it felt good to let it out!
Coralie, I'd like to rant with you:
I know the episode to which you refer and it actually had me in a funk at first - here was this woman who outweighed me at the start of the show running a marathon in less than a year while I'm plateaued at 4 miles for my "long run" ten months in. Made me want to stick my head in a bucket of ice cream until my hubby pointed out "she's at least 15 years younger".
I think your point may be that the show had her risking harm by running a marathon on an injury, when she wasn't prepared, so she could have a moment of triumph, and you are a wonderful person to be concerned. It seems the reveal at the end is really what it's all about, when they dress them in hootchie gear and everyone can ooh and ahh.
I should be more supportive of someone on TV who's struggling with weight issues too, and I promise I'll work at it, but I'm flat out jealous that I can't take a year off to just to exercise and spend a big ole Wal Mart gift card.
Whew! Sorry that was ugly, but it felt good to let it out!
bacon, real and true fitness takes years to achieve, just like true sustainable and healthy weight loss is SLOW, not fast.
You're much better off and smarter running your 4 mile runs after a year than this woman is for doing what the show is telling her to do.
Thank you, MrNamtor, and I apologize for my rant turned tantrum.
Big girl panties pulled up and back in place
Aw, too bad.
Just kidding Coralie, but what you said there just sounded soooo wrong.
Smaller By The Day
The funny thing is that I was basically going to do the same thing last year when I started running. It wasn't my initial intention to run a marathon, but I was going to start running and lose weight. Not too far along into it, I decided that I was going to run a marathon.
I trained to the best of my knowledge, and even got in a couple of 18 mile runs. They were slow and agonizing. I'm not talking about slow and easy. I mean that they truly sucked, and I was feeling pretty banged up. Luckily, I had started hanging around the forums.
LTH is right, in that there were a good number of people who were still pretty enthusiastic about me doing it. Sometimes its tempting to say nothing, rather than discourage someone. So, you end up with a thread full of "you can do it". Yet, a handful of people were talking some sense. I swallowed my pride and backed down to the half. It was a smart decision for sure, and I'm betting that without having been involved in sports for decades the HM would have been pretty harsh. Luckily, the HM was a great experience, and I ran another in the spring. I'm planning on one more HM before my first full in November.
The problem with television is that they put drama above common sense. I can't think of a worse reason to run a marathon than having someone else telling you that THEY want YOU to do it. I don't really trust television in the first place, and part of me wonders if she actually covered the entire distance under her own power.
A meniscus tear doesn't have to impede weight loss, but it seems like it would be a good reason to drop an arbitrary marathon goal. I wouldn't discourage someone from having a marathon as a goal, but based on my experience I would encourage anyone to be honest about their progress and have a plan B in their back pocket.
Improvements
Weight 100 pounds lost
5K 31:02 Sept. 2012 / 23:36 Sept. 2013 (Same Course)
10K 48:59 April 2013
HM 2:03:56 Nov. 2012 / 1:46:50 March 2013
MARATHON 3:57:33 Nov. 2013
Although I agree that we would congratulate the person if he/she was a poster, I would also think it was dumb, so to me, one does not contradict the other.
Damaris
As part of the 2024 London Marathon, I am fundraising for VICTA, a charity that helps blind and visually impaired children. My mentor while in law school, Jim K (a blind attorney), has been a huge inspiration and an example of courage and perseverance. Please consider donating.
Fundraising Page
Oh please. If anyone ever comes on here or had come on the old RWOL forum and talked about going from couch to marathon in a few months and finishing in 6:39, he/she would have been met by a chorus of WTG YOU MARATHONER YOU!!!!! WAY TO HANG IN THERE YOU MARATHONER YOU!!!!! Everyone is critical of that stuff until someone posts about it and then it's a love fest which just makes that person think they did the most marvelous thing ever.
Are you talking about someone who was planning to go from couch to marathon in a few months and run a marathon or someone who'd already done it?
I think if they were planning to, they would have gotten a pretty close to unanimous chorus of 'no, don't do it, please reconsider, it'll be better if you build up to that more slowly'.
If they've already done it... Well, yes, there would be a chorus of 'way to go's, but I'm of the opinion that once someone's already done something stupid, it does little good to try to talk them out of it. It just makes them feel unwelcome, and can put a bad taste in their mouths re: running in general (or at least running forums). If someone has made a significant change in their life and is running a few times a week after being sedentary, I think it's better to encourage that change, even if they accompanied it with something ill-considered like running a marathon.
I can understand not wanting to encourage others with a chorus of 'WTG MARATHONER!'s, but I think that the RR of an unprepared marathoner (even if followed by a bunch of congratulations) is usually one of the best incentives for good preparation.
I get that newer runners don't always have realistic goals. Sometimes the goals are too modest and sometimes they are more than a bit grandiose. Heck, I went through both. When I first started running, I thought that if I could just run three miles without having to stop for a break, I'd be the fittest person on the planet and I'd never want to run farther than that. Then, I thought the same thing about 10 miles. Really? You mean you can run for 10 whole miles? How in the world is that possible? Once I'd been running a few months and knew those goals were too modest, I went in the other direction. I thought I might run a marathon some day and figured I might get an all time best of 2:40ish. I had no clue what a 2:40 marathon meant. But, I read a lot, I listened to other runners, I read a bunch of crash and burn debut marathon reports, and I saw the 5K times of folks running 2:40 marathons. By doing that I realized that a) I didn't want to run a marathon for a while and b) I'll never run a 2:40 marathon.
What I don't get is why people encourage unrealistic goals. Over on the old forums, we'd occasionally get some guy who was over 200 pounds and wanted to run a sub 5:00 mile without going under 200 pounds and there were plenty of folks who would tell him to prove all of us nattering nabobs of negativism wrong - the physics of the forces required to move that much weight that distance in that length of time be damned. When everyone falls all over themselves congratulating a person who went from couch to 6:30 marathon in three months, they just encourage others to engage in the same reckless activity.
Jess runs for bacon
Are you talking about someone who was planning to go from couch to marathon in a few months and run a marathon or someone who'd already done it? I think if they were planning to, they would have gotten a pretty close to unanimous chorus of 'no, don't do it, please reconsider, it'll be better if you build up to that more slowly'. If they've already done it... Well, yes, there would be a chorus of 'way to go's, but I'm of the opinion that once someone's already done something stupid, it does little good to try to talk them out of it. It just makes them feel unwelcome, and can put a bad taste in their mouths re: running in general (or at least running forums). If someone has made a significant change in their life and is running a few times a week after being sedentary, I think it's better to encourage that change, even if they accompanied it with something ill-considered like running a marathon. I can understand not wanting to encourage others with a chorus of 'WTG MARATHONER!'s, but I think that the RR of an unprepared marathoner (even if followed by a bunch of congratulations) is usually one of the best incentives for good preparation.
Seconded, and also in this case someone is basically making them do it, instead of, making the decision themselves.
When everyone falls all over themselves congratulating a person who went from couch to 6:30 marathon in three months, they just encourage others to engage in the same reckless activity.
When I was a newer runner, and I would see those threads, I wasn't encouraged at all-- all that would go through my head was one of the favorite sayings of a professor of mine, in regards to students who were in their own personal hell at the end of the semester due to procrastination/poor planning/data loss:
"Don't let this be you".
(I ran my first marathon about 5 years after I started running. Was I scared off? Just enough, I would say.)