Non Runners- Why are they so Stupid?

This post has been a long time coming. It began percolating in my bemused little brain last year after the Bolder Boulder. A coworker and I were comparing our Bolder Boulder times when a third coworker interrupted our conversation with this: “Wow Ian, she almost beat you, and you’ve been running a lot longer than she has!” My time last year was 52:07, her time was 1:02:xx. How on earth do you consider losing by 10 minutes in a 10K race almost beating someone? I could have boiled 3 eggs at the finish line before she got there, one at a time! I mean we’re talking about a pace of 8:24 versus a pace of 10:00. If you were standing at the Mile 1 marker you would see me pass it and then a full minute and a half later you would see her pass it, that’s a lot of separation in a footrace.

I suppose that some of this can be attributed to not understanding the sport, but some of it is just basic math and it’s much more fun to call people idiots than it is to try to understand where they are coming from. Incidentally, I think that’s also the first rule for any kind of political punditry.

Anyway I was reminded how stupid non runners can be when I was talking to yet another coworker this past Monday about my January marathon (he brought it up, not me). He asked me if I had followed any kind of pacing strategy when running the marathon, which actually showed some promise that an intelligent discussion might ensue, but one didn’t. I told him that my goal was to start with a slow easy pace and then pick it up a little in the middle and late stages. He responded by saying “Oh, I see. So did you start at like a 12 minute mile pace and then finish at a 6 minute mile pace?” Yes, yes that’s exactly what I did.

Finally, this post really started to take shape when my wife updated her Facebook status with the number of weeks left until the Bolder Boulder 10K and a non running friend of ours commented “run a mile for me, I hate marathons!” I told Candis that she should let him know that a 10K was not a marathon, but she seems content to let his unenlightened mind believe that she is running a marathon. It’s easy to see why we’re together.

Then there’s the question that we’ve all heard at one point or another; “how long is a marathon?” or worse yet “how long is this marathon?” as though it might be a different distance in different states. So, let’s hear it in the comments, what stupid things have non runners said to you lately?