Too many people are doing things that are out of the ordinary, this doesn't make it normal however. It's not normal to run the crazy distances we see everyday, not everyone can and more to the point, not everyone wants to.
Hendo's original point was borne out of alarm i think, due to the amount of people he saw who suddenly all wanted to do Ultra's, i had the same sense of alarm after blogging about supporting Jen during WHW race few years back. Maybe when we blogged about it we made it sound sugar and light and fun and games. It Wasn't, and isn't. From either side of the coin.
Everyday now we read about people doing "inspirational" things. I say inspirational in inverted comma's as it's a personal thing whether you find it inspirational or not. Personally I'm not inspired by someone for instance running 100marathons in 100days,or someone who is a marathon/Ultra *bagger*
Probably because i feel i could do it too and I'm far from inspiring. I'm far more impressed by the ones who are out there giving it there all after putting in some bloody good training and getting the results.
I'm inspired by my friend Susan who has just ran a bloody good time in Abingdon after working damn hard for it despite the world throwing crap at her, this is the same Susan who I've dragged round training runs and tried to make her believe in herself. I'm inspired by Debs, who when she first started doing Ultra's was doing same times as me and is now a record breaker, she is amazing.
There are of course many more but i could go on and then upset someone by not mentioning them so i'll stop there.
We all have people who inspire us for different reasons of course, and I'm certainly not going to tell anyone who they should or shouldn't be inspired by. I guess it's a bit like the word Hero, its bandied around far too easily these days.
In other news, i have new shoes.
Nice shoes. :-)
ReplyDeleteThey would have been my choice too :-)
ReplyDeleteHi Sandra, interesting stuff but not sure I buy in completely. With any activity, "normal" changes as popularity increases. When I started climbing around 45 years ago it was viewed as a rather anarchic minority pastime, now it is totally establishment, pursued by tens of thousands in the UK. The same will happen with ultra running; we're just fortunate to be in our time when it is still a fairly new and rather easy-going game where we can know personally many of the main players, but we shouldn't kid ourselves that what we do is exceptional, we have just chosen to engage in an activity that the majority of people do not. The top men and women will always be impressive and deserve our respect as in any sport, but for the rest of us I'm not sure we need either to inspire or be inspired. We just play the game at whatever level we're at, enjoy it for what it is, and go for a beer afterwards. We sometimes bite off a bit more than we can chew but that can happen in most activities, we learn and gain from the experience, it normally leaves us coming back for more, and if it doesn't that's when we decide it isn't fun any more and we go and do something else. Cheers, Andy
ReplyDeletethats just it Andy, it's not just about Ultra running, there's plenty other people doing other inspiring stuff.It's not always about going further than the next person.Read this blog, i met this girl when we ran Loch Ness together. http://www.coffeeandoxygen.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteI certainly dont think what i do is exceptional i think i'm lucky to found something that makes me happy and i get to meet some fabulous people along the way.