Running Makes People Insane and This Forum Thread Proves It

Running sucks as it is, but apparently there's a subculture of runners who believe it doesn't suck enough. These people take to the letsrun.com forums and make each other miserable debating the running world's rigid cultural norms.

Take, for example, a harrowing tale from last Saturday.

"To whoever was running Key Bridge & Roosevelt Island 9:30 a.m. today," user MVRunner titled his post, referring to a popular running trail along the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. MVRunner continued:

You know, with the backwards white Pacers baseball cap, running with the black-haired friend. When you passed me on the Key Bridge, I was curious how fast you were going, and realized that I could use some tempo work myself. So I picked up the pace to match you, and stayed a polite 5 meters behind for the next mile, before you slowed down and I passed you back.

I'm sorry if that offended you, and I'm sorry if you were frustrated that you couldn't effortlessly drop me. But that's no excuse for you to call me a "f*&king joker," "f*&king a#$hole," and "f*&king hobby-jogger who should go back to where belong. You were free to run whatever pace you wanted, as was I. I didn't interfere with your run in the slightest. I bear you no ill-will -- in fact, I'm glad that you showed up to give me a metaphorical kick in the rear. But I don't deserve your verbal abuse. We runners need to stick together and encourage each other, not insult each other.

Sincerely,

A former 14:54 5k runner and 2:31 marathoner who may not be as fast as you, but who doesn't deserve your verbal abuse

The forum backlash began almost immediately:

I would have dropped you, even if it meant screwing up my workouts for the next couple of days.

Others soon piled on:

Would it have hurt you to say "hey, could I run with you guys?" I am not justifying the way they spoke to you (if you are not a troll), but running up behind someone and staying there is just creepy.

***

5 meters behind = stalker.

I would've punched you in the face if you lurked that close to me for an extended period of time.

It seems that many runners believe they not only own their own personal space, but also a radius of five meters (16.4 feet) as well, which, on a Saturday morning on a D.C. running trail, good fucking luck.

The "debate" goes on for six pages, and it has everything. Attempted analogies that fail because this subculture is riddled with insanity:

That's like having lunch or a coffee with a friend at a 4 person table and some random guy decides to sit at one of the empty seats without saying anything because they were curious what kind of coffee you were drinking.

Broader cultural points:

I had no clue how fearful people are. Turn off the television.

Letsrun.com Law No. 1: as any thread grows in size, the likelihood of fat-shaming approaches one:

The worst is when you're out on a slow recovery run and some slowpoke thinks you're running at a perfect tempo pace. So you have to speed up to get rid of that fatty huffing and puffing right behind you.

False flag conspiracy theorists:

Excellent troll. Gave the necessary clue with your use of "hobby jogger" and still got tons of responses, making it that much more delicious.

Character judgments based solely on how fast a person can run an arbitrary distance:

MVRunner wrote:

A former 14:54 5k runner and 2:31 marathoner who may not be as fast as you, but who doesn't deserve your verbal abuse

So are you angry he called a spade a spade?

And, of course, someone had an issue with the original poster's grammar:

Actually, you deserved his ORAL abuse. Verbal means words - can be written or spoken. So the abuse he exacted on you was oral abuse. Now, if he had written you a nasty note afterwards - that would be verbal abuse.

Even this was worth debating:

Sounds like verbal abuse was a perfectly acceptable choice of phrase according to your own definition, no?

User "the gimp" is the only person who seems to have some perspective on this and proposes a simple, practical solution:

If you want to be left alone, move to some rural armpit and run out in the middle of nowhere. Running in populated areas with lots of runners, it's only a matter of time before your workout is 'interruped' by someone running a similar pace.

MVRunner, realizing he is all alone except for someone who goes by "the gimp," comes to his own defense:

I didn't really have the opportunity to politely ask to join them. As soon as they saw that I was picking up the pace, they starting really hauling, trying to break me. And when they realized after a mile that they couldn't easily break me (i.e., when I passed them back) the hat-wearing guy started yelling and swearing at me, calling me a joker and hobby-jogger. It was like he was insulted that anyone had the temerity to resist getting broken by him.

Remember: these people are strangers! Everyone in this scenario sounds pathologically insane and incapable of basic social skills.

Thankfully, a new hero emerges, user "Typical runner or sockpuppet," who calls b.s. on the whole Backwards Pacer Hat narrative—but not without delving into some armchair anthropology to explain why it could have happened in the first place:

Although the story is made up, it's the kind of thing that happens among the hobby jogger crowd all the time. They don't race much so there is no settled hierarchy based on race results, and they don't train systematically at different paces. So training runs easily become races as the 7.5 minute mile guys prove they're faster than the 8 minute mile guys.

(There might be something to this "not a real story" theory. Recall the original post was titled, "To whoever was running Key Bridge & Roosevelt Island 9:30 a.m. today." The time at which it was posted? 9:31 AM, a mere minute after the supposed vulgar encounter took place!)

There are replies regarding a Georgetown running scandal involving some kind of scavenger hunt video, arguments over the definition of the word "bluff," the nature of gamesmanship and human competitiveness, and other important, time-consuming matters before the whole thread pitters out a few days later, without any true resolution.

Rather than conclude on this unsavory note, I'll leave you with the world's worst zinger, courtesy of user Cicirunner:

You should have said, "If I'm a hobby jogger, then I guess that makes you a couch to 5k guy cause I'm smoking your ass."

Runners are the worst.