some lady runs 26 miles and people still complain?!
MSN has an article of a lady, Denise Hazlick as she prepared and raced in a 26 mile marathon. They have her “diary” where she wrote about her experience. I thought it was a pretty interesting article, very encouraging for a lazy bum such as myself. Her “diary” entry about the race- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7680306/
what i find funny is the readers’ review of her accomplishment (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7820462/)
for the most part, people seem to be encouraging and congratulating her on her accomplishment. but a few people seemed awfully harsh! they’re probably serious runners or perhaps people who regularly exercise or something. and sure maybe finishing a marathon is no big deal for them… but dude! comments like:
Eating bacon and hash browns, walking, going to the bathroom, and popping pills. Now that’s what I call a real running experience. My only hope is that people don’t confuse what you are doing with actual running.
After having read your article, and following your story from time to time, I am concerned by the example you are setting. There seems to be a real lack of respect for the distance, and events your are participating in. Clearly you lack the training and experience for these events. The evidence of this are your physical injuries, lack of preperation, and woefull time. Your article highlights so many mistakes that could easily have been avoided had you taken the time to be fully prepared. I blame your ‘training partner’ for this as well.
I would not be so quick to pat yourself on the back for having to walk a third of the race. I’m wondering if you even ran at least 20 miles in preperation for the race (which you should have done for your training according to any number of marathon training plans).
The example you seem to set is ‘anyone can do it’… seemingly on a whim. This show a great deal of naivete, and is a very real way to injure yourself. And sadly, by extension, you may be contributing to another’s injury; those foolish enough to follow your path. I have been in training and have completed multiple runs, triathlons and cycling events. I have a 3 year goal for an Ironman. When I compete, I actually compete and respect the distances. There are so many distances and race formats available, by leaping to the Ironman first is completely unrealistic. I am convince you will not finish, at least not withing standard time restrictions, and very well my injure yourself. This point doesn’t concern me as much as the poor example that you set. Namely poor preperation.
ouch!! those runners shouldn’t worry that she’s creating a false impression on how easy it is to run a marathon. at least for me… after reading this article, i don’t think there’s any question about the effort of training and preparation needed to run a marathon. i’m definitely (haha, not that i ever considered it anyways) never going to go and sign up for one randomly without training. considering what percentage of america is obese and unable to even run a mile (oh me! me! me!), i think even walking 26 miles would be an accomplishment! 
i like the final reader’s comment about the grammar of her article though (“jeff and i”… “jeff and myself”… “jeff and me”) 
seems like something mariam would do (btw, preperation… isn’t it preparation? or is this some canadian spelling, like colour eh? )
