The Running Curmudgeon

I am turning into the running curmudgeon. I mean to say, when I encounter or am forced to interact with, "newbies," I find it hard to resist reminiscing about the good old days. For me, that is just prior to the invention of GoreTex and polar fleece. When $100 was an unheard of amount to spend  on a pair of running shoes. When people who wanted to listen to music during their runs had to carry a CD player or even a cassette player. When malt Power Bars and lemon lime Gatorade was all there was.

And today, confronted by an irritating post on the Women's Running Community Facebook page, I responded in a perhaps unbecoming and curmudgeonly way.

The person said she had been running for 2 years ( what I would consider a newbie) and had done a couple of 5ks and a 10k, and wanted to train for a half-marathon. But she had a friend who wanted her to sign up for a 5k with her, and she felt like that was a waste of time, with her vast experience and big goal and all (this last part is me interpolating a bit). So she was asking if it was wrong to feel this way. And if she was being a running snob.

My reply was that I thought it was sad she felt that way about the 5k, and if she thought 5k was too easy, maybe she wasn't running fast enough. I thought about asking if she won those 5ks she had entered before, or even placed in her age group, and if so.were there other people in her age group?

So who is the real running snob?

In fact, I might have to unsubscribe from those posts, because a lot of them are just too stupid and irritating. And I am just a curmudgeon.