Who are you calling a non-elite runner? I wouldn’t say I am a veteran of running but I do have eight years under my belt with 9 marathons and about 60 other running events to go with it. What has really ticked me off is this complete disregard for the large community of runners who lace up their shoes on a daily basis, logging in miles in hopes to build our endurance and better our times for upcoming running events but when we open the pages of runner’s world magazine, or attend any marathon expo, the only thing you see is this exuberant worshiping for the class of what the world of running calls elite runner’s. Call me bitter but where is the love for the so-called everyday runner? If you ask me, the magazines and the experts have it all wrong.
There are millions of us out there who work forty plus hours a week, have families, have finals and mid-terms, have financial problems, but we somehow find a way to pay registration fees, pay for subscriptions for running magazines, and do whatever we can to get tips from the so called elite but what do we get in return? We get shunned by runner’s who get paid to appear at running events, who get their running shoes for free, have the best training facilities, coaches and all the amenities afforded to them. As I see it, our registration fees go towards the prizes those runners get. The free shoes Asics gives away, we buy so once again, I ask where is the love?
What qualifies you to be an elite runner? I run over 14 running events each year and I may come in the top 3 in my age division two or 3 times but there’s no bonus, just a ribbon that I am proud to wear around my neck because it comes with respect from all the other runner’s who are out there giving it their all week in and week out. We don’t have lucrative shoe deals or sports drink endorsements but we have an admiration and a love for the sport and for each other and we share tactics and training advice with each other for free. None of us consider ourselves famous just because we come in 2nd in our age division at a local 5k. Runner’s world is not running to put an everyday runner on the cover of its magazines; why not, we buy the magazine.
When race directors raise the registration fees to increase the prize purse for the elites, we scrape together our pennies and do whatever we can to make sure we don’t miss the race. When we get injured, we don’t drop out of races, we ice, we tape, and we do whatever it takes to make it out there. No one knows our troubles, because it’s not important enough to write about. Each of us so-called everyday runners has a story to tell worth a million dollars but I am sure we would settle for just a little recognition.
If you ask me the word elite has been placed on the wrong runners. It takes an elite person to do what we do. No one prepares us for a race. We don’t have the luxury of a coach. No race has ever paid us to be there but we have paid them to run all because we love the sport and sometimes we just wish for the sport to love us back.
Please do not get me wrong. I do have a humungous amount of respect and admiration for those who have worked hard, and have fought long and hard to get to where they are today but why have so many of them abandon the runner’s out there who contribute just as much to the sport as they do?
The sport cannot survive without us!
