Some people don’t know when to quit. Yesterday I sat stewing as someone went on for 20 solid minutes about how awful running is. His wife is training for her first half marathon and apparently I, well-known as a runner and triathlete, was the person he decided to come talk to. I sincerely hope that he is being more supportive of his wife in her goals. He wouldn’t stop ridiculing running. Why would anyone want to run? You don’t really need $100 shoes to run. You get Runner’s World magazine — see, that’s absurd! Why does running need its own magazine? Ha ha, why would anyone run? Ho ho, oooh, I can’t run in a cotton t-shirt. A GPS watch, are you mentally ill? Hey, yeah, it’s great to have a goal and all, that’s nice, oh but why running? It’s so dumb.
On and on and on.
At first it was funny — I’m used to the “you’re crazy” comments, because they’re usually followed with “but that’s cool that you do that.” But the longer it went on, the more I began to doubt that he was really kidding, and then it was really annoying. Dude, I get it. You don’t like running. You think it’s a stupid sport. Just say that and move on. I don’t stand around ranting about how stupid your hobbies are. A little respect, please.
Grrrrr!!! That’s even making me upset and I wasn’t even there.
Poor man, he must have a self esteem issue or a mental illness (runphobia). Probably honks at crazy cyclists too. Only a non-runner could know how awful running is.
“Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.†–Plato
Runophobe – ptui!
Give him some cheese with that whine and send him on his away.
I run into the same thing about Houston. I know that Houston isn’t for everyone and I totally respect that, but when someone comments on a photo of Houston (not mine thankfully) and says that he hopes that a hurricane will wipe the whole city off the map… well.
I can’t understand people who don’t respect others interests. I honestly wonder if they really just have no clue how rude they are being. I so want to go and explain it to this guy.
Ok, whew. I think you hit a pet peeve for me. 🙂