Monday, June 04, 2007

Are you an "old school" runner?

Hey bloggers.

My buddy J-money linked to this article in the New York Times about Modern Day Marathoners. Now, people run with less mileage, sometimes as little as possible. Many people opt for the "marathon survival plan" with one 16 miler, one 18 miler, and one 21 miler, with some junk miles here and there. And sometimes they voluntarily take walking breaks early in the race, before they have walking breaks thrust upon them.

I think maybe I'm a little old school on these issues. I don't like walk-breaks, and the goal for me is to be fit enough to run the whole way. But that seems to be the double standard: I'm not allowed to walk, but if you want to walk during the marathon, or even walk the whole way, I still think you're doing a great thing. What a hypocrite I am!

I even think it's okay for me to run if I'm a little bit injured. Minor injuries seem to work themselves out with a little bit of running. But for other people, I find myself advising against it, citing my 6 marathons of experience. :)

But then again, maybe I'm somewhere in the middle of the old school runner and the modern marathoner. A lot of people who think of themselves as an "old school runner" think that the people who take the walk breaks shouldn't even be out there, and should just run 5Ks or a distance that they're in shape for. Many of those "old school" runners rub me the wrong way. Those folks that write us slow people off as lazy and weak are out there too, calling themselves "old school." They don't bother me too much, they're just one of my obstacles.

Anyway bloggers, like it says in the song,

If you want to be me, be me
If you want to be you, be you
There's a million things to do
yeah you know that there are

And if you want to live high, live high
And if you want to live low, live low
'Cause there's a million ways to go
You know that there are

Rock on blogosphere!
Love, Keith.

9 comments:

Crosstrain said...

I just want to stay in school Keith, new or old, whatever keeps me going.

Steve Bezner said...

I just want the free t-tshirt.

TX Runner Mom said...

LOL, I would fall into the new school category. I just wanna finish as fast as I can doing 5/1s...oh and of course I want the free shirt! ;-)

Woodlands Runner said...

I just want to be like Keith.

Sarah said...

I'm new school. Walk breaks help me mentally. But sometimes I go old school and run the whole way. :)

Tiggs said...

I must be new school. I just want to run as often as I can and have fun with it. Sometimes it's fun for me to push myself and try to PR (Houston 07) or sometimes it's more fun to just take it easy and score a PW (Parkersburg 06)! I don't want to walk b/c I'm impatient, but walkers don't bother me!

Anonymous said...

Five years from now the new school will be the old school and the old school will be the new school. I'm not down with doing "as little as possible" mileage wise because there is a much higher likelihood that person will only do one marathon because the experience ends up being a crappy one. As for walking early or walking late or walking on schedule, whatever gets you to the finish line in good health is OK by me. My marathon PR was done taking 15-20 second walk breaks every mile after mile two.

Anonymous said...

Mmmm...Cat Stevens, Harold and Maude

Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort and...Vivian Pickles!

Homer

David said...

Glad to see you're still a hoot! I like reading about old school runners (the elite one's who could back it up) and the Kenyans who run to school, but I guess I mostly train under the new school method.