Many, many, many years ago, I made peace with the fact that I’ll never run a marathon. It was an easy decision because I find running excessive distances to be painful and boring. It’s just not for me. I admire people who can do it, though.
The New York Times has an interesting article about a marathon rule that forbids the use of music players in the name of safety and fair competition. Those of you who are destined to run a marathon some day or who have already completed a marathon, I ask you; how would you feel if your digital audio player was either confiscated from you before the race started (and shipped home) or if you were disqualified in the middle of the race for hiding a tiny iPod in a crevice of some type?
Rule Jostles Runners Who Race to Their Own Tune [New York Times]
Running is for cowards. I ain’t running nowhere. It amazes me that there is a large segment of the country that trains themselves to be able to run away the furthest and the fastest. We even give out Olympic medals for world’s fastest quitter.
@Dan: huh? wow.
This may sound odd, but I can’t run to music because I pay too much attention to it at the expense of the run. I find myself almost running to the beat. It probably just means I’m a lousy runner (and I am), but anything that takes my focus away from my pace and my breathing can spell disaster.
@Dan bitter much?
@dave
I have the opposite issue – I can’t run without the beat of the music. I run to zone out and to exercise my dog not to “concentrate on the run.” If I spend 5 seconds thinking about my running it spells disaster (as I usually run into something or realize how stupid running really is.)
How in the world does using a music player impact fair competition? Oh I get it, if you blast Britney’s Gimme Gimme Gimme through your outward pointing headphones it might distract other runners and cause spontaneous vomiting, therefore giving you an advantage.
Dan is just trying to make it into The.Be$t.Kommenter :-)
I ran last year’s NYC Marathon … my first and last. And I thought I was not going to be able to run that far without some accompaniment. I rocked my tunes for 10 miles then shut it down to take in the whole NYC Marathon experience … the cheering of the supporters, the bands on the course and all that. By the time I hit “the wall” at mile 16, the last thing on my mind was listening to music. All I wanted to do was get the damned race over and done with. When that second wind hit at around mile 23, the crowds were so vocal that I didn’t need the music anymore.
That being said, for those runners who need that psychological edge that music provides, I’d be PISSED if they tried to take it away from me at the beginning of the race. First time marathoners especially probably need that little boost to get them settled into their run.
lol dan
@jay – i agree. It seemed like a good idea during my marathon but once I was near the middle I wanted nothing to do with headphones.
I read in a recent article in “Runners World” that a lot of races, not just marathons, are considering banning headphones because they cause accidents in crowds.
I’m with Jay. I train using my ipod because there isn’t much to look at and my route is usually the same. During the race, there are a lot of distractions and things to get your adrenaline pumping (crowd, bands, people not stopping to go the bathroom, etc). Once you hit your wall, you don’t think about jack except trying to put one foot in front of the other. I knew in advance we couldn’t have music, but I can imagine it would defeat some people right before the race to find out no Eye of the Tiger loop was allowed.
Dan, no, Runners are ANYTHING but quitters, they work harder then you have EVER and they do it day after day after day, I was just up on the track sprinting 400’s then sprinting hills to get my speed back and i was going to puke, i was getting dizzy also but did i give up? no. I kept running until i felt like i was going to die and then still kept running, thats the great thing about running it pushes the body to the human limits. Even myself a 14 year old dosent have the ignorance of you.
-Sincerly,Mac. :)