A Rant

A bit of a rant before I set off on today’s run.

As you may recall, I’ve suffered a bit with the weather lately, completing runs in minus eight wind chill, thick snow, driving wind and rain, and slippery ice.  Yesterday was supposed to be my long run day and today my yoga day.  However, yesterday was heavy rain all day whereas today will be dry and mild.  I decided to be kind to myself and swap them round.  The only problem was that this now left me with a long run the day before a Chase The Moon event I’d entered.  So I posted on the Run Through Facebook community for advice about the race – should I defer or should I run it slowly as a recovery run?

Several people decided to take this as an opportunity not to actually answer the question but to have a go at me for deciding not to do a long run in the rain.  I posted in the afternoon, so not only was this “advice” I hadn’t asked for, it was advice that I would have needed a time machine to take.  One of the responses was actually posted at 10:30pm after the rain had stopped!  Clearly the only purpose of posting it was for them to point out how hardcore they were for running in all conditions, and how useless I was for daring to prefer running in nice weather.  These people all asked “So what are you going to do if it rains on marathon day?” the implication clearly being that they imagined that I would just not bother running.  How stupid and rude can you get?  Do they really believe that just because I would not run in bad weather when there was a choice that I would simply give up on something that I had spend nearly the last year training for?  One guy went on and on trying to pick holes in my training and telling me that I should have done the run in the rain and then he called me “Suzy” (my name is Suzi with an I and it was right there on every comment I posted) which was the last straw so I blocked him.  I think the fact that he couldn’t spell my name when it was right there in front of him just goes to show that he wasn’t reading a word I was saying and was just relishing the opportunity to put me down.

I wouldn’t normally let stuff like this get to me but I have been finding it all so hard lately and having a bunch of strangers criticise me for not wanting to spend three hours running in the rain just makes me feel really sad and downtrodden and like I just want to give up and stay home and watch Jeremy Kyle.  But I will not let them win so I am off to put my running shoes on now.