Quitting a marathon

OK, I'll come clean. I quit a marathon -- was gunning for low 2:30's, went
out too fast, and blew up at 19.

I could have finished in 2:40 something, but didn't want to totally thrash
myself for a (then) mediocre time. (a time I'd kill for now as as "mature
citizen"😉

I still regret it.

-- Dan

"Tim" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I've run 2 marathons and at several times during both i thought of
quitting.Thankfully i didnt. I think i would have suffered far greater
by quitting than the temporary physical pain i endured during the
marathon. There is no greater feeling than finishing a marathon. No task
in life seems impossible to me anymore.
Tim

[email hidden] (Tim) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I've run 2 marathons and at several times during both i thought of
quitting.Thankfully i didnt. I think i would have suffered far greater
by quitting than the temporary physical pain i endured during the
marathon. There is no greater feeling than finishing a marathon. No task
in life seems impossible to me anymore.
Tim

I've run about 10 marathons and quit the last one. I was aiming for
sub 3; arrived at half way in 1:29 more or less all-in, and stepped
off the road. This was London 2003. I can see absolutely no gain in
carrying on running if you're not going to achieve your goal. If your
goal is just to finish, then carry on running. If your goal is an
Olympic medal and you're 4th with no realistic expectation of
improving, then quit. It's not like she had to prove that she could
finish, is it?

Edward
--
The reading group's reading group:
http://www.bookgroup.org.uk

(Edward) said:

[email hidden] (Tim) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I've run 2 marathons and at several times during both i thought of
quitting.Thankfully i didnt. I think i would have suffered far
greater by quitting than the temporary physical pain i endured
during the marathon. There is no greater feeling than finishing a
marathon. No task in life seems impossible to me anymore.
Tim

I've run about 10 marathons and quit the last one. I was aiming for
sub 3; arrived at half way in 1:29 more or less all-in, and stepped
off the road. This was London 2003. I can see absolutely no gain in
carrying on running if you're not going to achieve your goal. If your
goal is just to finish, then carry on running. If your goal is an
Olympic medal and you're 4th with no realistic expectation of
improving, then quit. It's not like she had to prove that she could
finish, is it?

No. But she wasn't just running for herself.

Phil M.

Dan Stumpus said:

I still regret it.

-- Dan

I quit an Olympic Distance triathlon one time and learned a similar
lesson. I haven't dropped out of a race since.

Mike Tennent
"IronPenguin"

Tim said:

I've run 2 marathons and at several times during both i thought of
quitting.Thankfully i didnt. I think i would have suffered far greater
by quitting than the temporary physical pain i endured during the
marathon. There is no greater feeling than finishing a marathon. No task
in life seems impossible to me anymore.

It is really bad to DNF unless you're injured. You'll "feel like" quitting in
any race that you run at the edge of your ability. You have a choice each time,
and you must make the right choice each time. If you ever do DNF, you seriously
need to review your approach to both training and racing, until you understand
what went wrong and how you're going to fix it.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

Edward said:

[email hidden] (Tim) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I've run 2 marathons and at several times during both i thought of
quitting.Thankfully i didnt. I think i would have suffered far greater
by quitting than the temporary physical pain i endured during the
marathon. There is no greater feeling than finishing a marathon. No task
in life seems impossible to me anymore.
Tim

I've run about 10 marathons and quit the last one. I was aiming for
sub 3; arrived at half way in 1:29 more or less all-in, and stepped
off the road. This was London 2003. I can see absolutely no gain in
carrying on running if you're not going to achieve your goal. If your

I'd say that if the goal that you've set yourself makes a quitter of you
instead of bringing out the best in you, it doesn't serve a useful purpose.

You owe it to yourself to make an honest effort in any race you enter.

Quoted message said:

goal is just to finish, then carry on running. If your goal is an
Olympic medal and you're 4th with no realistic expectation of
improving, then quit.

I disagree, and I think Paula needs to sit down and have a really long talk
with her coach after that.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

Quoted message said:

It's not like she had to prove that she could
finish, is it?

Yes you dumb kunt, she DID have to prove she could finish, because it was
obvious she couldn't.

Quoted message said:

No. But she wasn't just running for herself.

THAT is the point! She was running for us, this decrepid rundown country, and
the miserable [censored] had no right to quit. She should marry Kerry, with two
faces like that, we'd rename them the "Bassett twins".

Quoted message said:

It is really bad to DNF unless you're injured.

Exactly! If you DO because you are injured fine, but you don't quit because of
your mental condition, if you do you had no business being there in the first
place. As I always have said, mental conditioning is paramount. Stand at the
start line, if you have doubts beyond the normal pre-race butterflies, then
packit up and go home.

"Phil M." <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

(Edward) said:

[email hidden] (Tim) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I've run 2 marathons and at several times during both i thought of
quitting.Thankfully i didnt. I think i would have suffered far
greater by quitting than the temporary physical pain i endured
during the marathon. There is no greater feeling than finishing a
marathon. No task in life seems impossible to me anymore.
Tim

I've run about 10 marathons and quit the last one. I was aiming for
sub 3; arrived at half way in 1:29 more or less all-in, and stepped
off the road. This was London 2003. I can see absolutely no gain in
carrying on running if you're not going to achieve your goal. If your
goal is just to finish, then carry on running. If your goal is an
Olympic medal and you're 4th with no realistic expectation of
improving, then quit. It's not like she had to prove that she could
finish, is it?

No. But she wasn't just running for herself.

Who else was she running for, in this context? It's not a team event,
so there are no points for finishing fourth. She wasn't paid an
appearance fee, so far as I am aware. You can't surely be deluded
enough to think that she was running for the spectators and the fans?

Edward
--
The reading group's reading group:
http://www.bookgroup.org.uk

Edward said:

"Phil M." <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

(Edward) said:

[email hidden] (Tim) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...
> I've run 2 marathons and at several times during both i thought of
> quitting.Thankfully i didnt. I think i would have suffered far
> greater by quitting than the temporary physical pain i endured
> during the marathon. There is no greater feeling than finishing a
> marathon. No task in life seems impossible to me anymore.
> Tim

I've run about 10 marathons and quit the last one. I was aiming for
sub 3; arrived at half way in 1:29 more or less all-in, and stepped
off the road. This was London 2003. I can see absolutely no gain in
carrying on running if you're not going to achieve your goal. If your
goal is just to finish, then carry on running. If your goal is an
Olympic medal and you're 4th with no realistic expectation of
improving, then quit. It's not like she had to prove that she could
finish, is it?

No. But she wasn't just running for herself.

Who else was she running for, in this context? It's not a team event,

England. She was chosen to represent her country.

There are no "unattached" athletes in the olympics.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

Quoted message said:

Yes you dummy , she DID have to prove she could finish, because it was
obvious she couldn't.

Every marathon is a new test of your endurance. You must prove yourself again
at each one.

Quoted message said:

Who else was she running for, in this context? It's not a team event,
so there are no points for finishing fourth. She wasn't paid an
appearance fee, so far as I am aware. You can't surely be deluded
enough to think that she was running for the spectators and the fans?

Are you drain bread? This has to be tops this year for stupidity. She was
running FOR US! It's called THE OLYMPICS you idiot, you REPRESENT YOUR COUNTRY,
not yourself.

Quoted message said:

There are no "unattached" athletes in the olympics.

Exactly, this is not an individual event.

On 8/22/04 10:43 PM, in article
[email hidden], "Tim" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I've run 2 marathons and at several times during both i thought of
quitting.Thankfully i didnt. I think i would have suffered far greater
by quitting than the temporary physical pain i endured during the
marathon. There is no greater feeling than finishing a marathon. No task
in life seems impossible to me anymore.
Tim

I think, with the exception of serious injury, that it is a good idea to
finish, even if a person has to walk the last miles. However, there are a
few who actually use marathons as training runs for future marathons and
actually plan on quitting at 18/20 miles or so - I would consider this an
exception. Me, if I put in the training for a marathon, I'm going to finish
it!

"Phil M." <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

(Edward) said:

[email hidden] (Tim) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I've run 2 marathons and at several times during both i thought of
quitting.Thankfully i didnt. I think i would have suffered far
greater by quitting than the temporary physical pain i endured
during the marathon. There is no greater feeling than finishing a
marathon. No task in life seems impossible to me anymore.
Tim

I've run about 10 marathons and quit the last one. I was aiming for
sub 3; arrived at half way in 1:29 more or less all-in, and stepped
off the road. This was London 2003. I can see absolutely no gain in
carrying on running if you're not going to achieve your goal. If your
goal is just to finish, then carry on running. If your goal is an
Olympic medal and you're 4th with no realistic expectation of
improving, then quit. It's not like she had to prove that she could
finish, is it?

No. But she wasn't just running for herself.

Phil M.

I've never quit a Marathon but looking back wish I had on one or two
occasions.
Finishing probably did more damage to my condition than quitting would have
done to my psyche.
If she was part of a team competition, I'd say she should finish if she
wasn't injured, I have no problem with her dropping out given the situation.
Paula, you go girl!

Quoted message said:

If your goal is an
Olympic medal and you're 4th with no realistic expectation of
improving, then quit. It's not like she had to prove that she could
finish, is it?

I borrowed this story from a web site called ablemedia.com...to me,
this is one of the most inspiring marathon stories of the Olympics:

"At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania
started the Olympic marathon with all the other runners but finished
it alone. With only a few spectators remaining in the stands and the
winner of the marathon crossing the finish line over an hour earlier,
the lone runner entered the stadium. Bandaged and bloody, Akhwari
crossed the finish line. When asked by a reporter why he did not just
quit he answered, 'My country did not send me to Mexico City to start
the race. They sent me here to finish.'"

Most of the races I run (granted, I haven't done a
marathon...yet.....) are to support a good cause, and I feel almost
like I owe it to *them* to finish. It's not about me...

Jim

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Stand at the start line, if you have doubts beyond the normal pre-race

butterflies, then packit up and go home. <<

Wouldn't that be quitting?

Mike

Edward said:

Quoted message said:

If your goal is an
Olympic medal and you're 4th with no realistic expectation of
improving, then quit. It's not like she had to prove that she could
finish, is it?

Ya, I generalize it by thinking that a recreational athlete is validated
by finishing, while a professional athlete is validated by winning. Only
a generalization, now- I know plenty of recs also want to win.

-J