Running alone is not the problem

I saw well-meaning "advice" in the newspaper this week that women should buddy up for runs for safety.

F*** that.

The problem is not women running alone.

The problem is that drunk-driving teens shouldn't have thrown a beer bottle at me from their speeding car.
The problem is that drivers shouldn't blow through stop signs.
The problem is that a creeper shouldn't have approached my friend, asking for "directions," and tried to lure her into a canyon.

Don't get me wrong.
I love my running buddies.
But I shouldn't *need* them for safety. And I'm tired of being told I should.

Women already, disproportionately, select their routes and running times based on avoiding the threat that someone might harass or attack them. That's a disgraceful commentary on our society. The blame-the-victim (she shouldn't have been running alone, with headphones, before dawn, etc...) mindset puts it on the runner if someone attacks her.

F*** that. She had the right to run.
Alone.
The attacker does not have the right to attack. The harasser does not have the right to harass.

Runner's World has it right on this.
http://www.runnersworld.com/running-while-female

Source: Runner's World Survey

Rants & Raves

RANT

$178 for a yoga sweater that doubles as a meditation blanket?

$995 for yoga sweat pants?!

#$%@#$%

I'm so disgusted by the idea of paying a month's rent for a pair of sweatpants that I'm not even sure where to begin this rant...

What I will say is that clearly these people have missed the entire point of yoga... Yoga is a practice of non-attachment. It is about observing your current situation and being ok with things as they are.

Yoga can also be an excellent form of exercise, both physical and mental. But no matter what yoga means to you, what you wear is of little, if any, importance.

From Yoga Journal...

A couple of years ago, when I had just returned to Yoga Journal after six months of traveling to ashrams and holy sites in India, I got a call from a writer for Mirabella magazine who was researching a fashion spread on exercise wear.

"I was wondering" she said, "what is the traditional outfit for doing yoga?"

I thought of the naked yogis I had seen on the banks of the Ganges, their skin smeared with ashes from the cremation pyre to remind themselves of the body's impermanence, their foreheads painted with the insignia of Shiva, the god of destruction. I couldn't resist.

"Well, traditionally, you would carry a trident and cover your body with the ashes of the dead," I told her.

There was a long pause, during which I could practically hear her thinking, "This will never fly with the Beauty Editor." Finally I took pity on her. "But alternatively," I said, "a leotard and tights will work just fine."

Naked, or covered in ashes, or in spandex, or in your pajamas... Whatever you wear, yoga is most certainly not about acquiring material possessions or showing off your wealth.

The silver lining in this story is that very few people were willing to pay $178 for a yoga sweater. So now it's on clearance...

Now on the Clearance rack

RAVE

High school runner Mary Cain finished her SATs then shattered the all-time high school mile record with a pace of 4:32.78 - a pace 6 seconds faster than the previous indoor mile record and more than 2 seconds faster than the outdoor mile record!

Image source

But she wasn't done yet...

For her encore Cain went on to finish third place overall in the 2 mile race, with time (9:38.68) that crushed the prior high school track record by more than 17 seconds.

Coached by Alberto Salazar, it looks like Cain's running future is bright.

I hope she also nailed the SATs...

What are you ranting or raving about this week?

Katherine the Great (a nod to Boston)

The year: 1967

The person: Katherine Switzer

The event: The first woman registers for, and completes, the Boston Marathon at a time when women were banned from the course. (She registered as "K.V. Switzer.")

The scandal: The event organizer, Jock Semple, tried to pull Switzer from the course, yelling "Get the hell out of my race!"

Image source

So... Happy 116th birthday to the Boston Marathon.

Happy 45th anniversary to K.V. Switzer's epic run.

And happy 40th anniversary of the first Boston Marathon that didn't chase women off the course. Thanks to that change in rules, today 43 percent of entrants are female.

Watch her interview with PBS here:

Watch Kathrine Switzer on PBS. See more from Makers: Women Who Make America.

My (personal) favorite quote from the interview:

"I'm gonna' finish this race on my hands and my knees if I have to... Because nobody believes that I can do this, and suddenly I realize, you know, if I don't finish this race, then everybody is going to believe women can't do it and that they don't deserve to be here and that they're incapable."

It wasn't until 1984 that women were (finally) allowed to run the marathon in the Olympics. That rule was changed in response to the lobbying work of Katherine and others.

Thank you Katherine!

Aren't you glad we no longer need bodyguards to run?

Sexist new rules

This morning I learned that the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF), the record-tracking agency for all things running, just ruled that only:

"World Records for women to be recognised in women only races. The IAAF shall keep a separate list of “World Best Performances” achieved in mixed Road Races.”

Their logic: women run faster in co-ed races, so those should not count toward record setting. (So by this logic all marathons should be run on closed courses with no hydration support or cheering crowds, right?)

According to Running Times, the only issue remaining to be decided is

whether the rule will be applied retroactively. USATF’s Glenn Latimer seems to think so, and that Joan Benoit’s 2:24:52 at the 1984 Olympics will become the American record. In this case, note also that Paula Radcliffe’s 2:15:25 would no longer be the world record, as she had male pacemakers during that race (as did Deena Kastor when she ran 2:19:36). The Road Race Commission member also thinks existing records set in mixed races will be thrown out.

I have never heard anything so sexist or ridiculous in the running world.

Tracy, over at Go, Tracy, Go! wrote a much more eloquent analysis than I can right now. (I'm almost too mad to type.) So for more details, please see: Tracy's post.

Am I overreacting, or is this ruling unfair?

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Proper or prudish?

Black plastic wrappers around magazines like Playboy would seem extreme in Europe, but are common in the States. I suppose I understand the practice. I really don't need or want to see boobs when I'm buying a pack of bubble gum.

But my grocery store seems to have taken this practice to a whole new level.

Really, Publix? Really?

I lifted the modesty panels, just to see what could possibly be so shocking that it needed a cover. (Curiosity is either my strong point or my weakness. You decide.)

Here's what I found:

Apparently the September cover of Oxygen is inappropriate for the grocery store checkout line.

I'm so confused! Remember, this is the Florida panhandle. Standard summer attire for men is shorts. Only. From the backyard to the bayou and certainly out in public there are nearly-naked men everywhere here in the summer. Summer attire for women is a bit more modest. But while exercising outdoors the uniform for Florida ladies is shorts + sports bra. How else can a girl run in this heat?

So I can see my neighbors running around in various states of undress, but I can't see a photo of the same attire on the cover of a magazine?

And, more importantly, Florida's panhandle is in the nation's obesity alley. In nearby Alabama and Mississippi one third of adults are obese. Perhaps we should put modesty panels over the chocolate bars at the checkout line, not the fitness magazines.

Am I wrong to be shocked?

Is this proper? Or prudish?

Sunday superlative

My hat goes off to Diana Nyad.

While we may all go to the beach and play in the surf this weekend, Nyad is preparing for a 100+ mile swim from Cuba to Florida.

Nyad still holds a world record for the longest swim in history - a record that has stood, unsurpassed, since 1979, when she swam just over 102 miles from Bimini (in the Bahamas) to the coast of Florida.

And if the record is broken this summer it will be Nyad who will break it. At age 61. By swimming from Cuba to Florida. Without a shark cage to protect her from marine predators.

Yes, yes... I know Nyad is not a runner.

But she is one hell of an athlete. She was the Michael Phelps of the 1960s and 70s. Heck, given her hours in the water, she might have been better than him - maybe not faster, but has Phelps ever swum around the island of Manhattan?

After a ten year career, at the end of the 70s, Nyad hit the wall that is athletic burnout. Repeated 30-hour swims and 100-mile swims could do that to a person. So after 31 years without swimming a single stroke, Nyad rekindled her dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida. She started training again. She planned this swim last summer, only to have it called off for bad weather and lack of the proper travel paperwork. But, rather than let her dream fade away, she trained all over again this year.

That kind of single-minded dedication is inspiring, to say the least, for any athlete.

And to top it off, she's a smartie: Phi Beta Kappa, fluent in four languages, and her resume includes commentary and/or writing for National Public Radio, the New York Times, Fox Sports News, ABC's Wide World of Sports... (and I could go on, but you get the idea).

So I'll keep my fingers crossed that the weather holds out, the paperwork lines up, the currents are helpful, and the sharks have brunch elsewhere...

Photo courtesy of the National Library of New Zealand