Running news roundup

A lot has been happening in the world of endurance sports, and since this is my blog, I would like to offer my take on some of the top headlines of late. If I were writing for a respected news outlet, I would be required to mention that this piece does not necessarily reflect the opinions of this organization, its sponsors or its affiliates. But let’s be real—this blog never has been, nor ever will be, a respected news outlet. And it definitely doesn’t have any sponsors or affiliates. So, I think I’m safe in that regard. Also, I would like to point out that I realize I have missed the window of timeliness on some of these items, especially by journalistic standards. Again, this blog is not a respected news outlet, so those rules do not apply. (Sorry, Mom and Dad—that journalism degree will come in handy at some point. I promise am fairly confident.)

A different kind of paid appearance: the Suzy Favor-Hamilton debacle

Look, I’ve seen Pretty Woman. I know there are a lot of Vivian Wards out there just waiting for their own Edward Lewis to whisk them away from a world of blonde wigs and cheap platform shoes in a white stretch limousine.

Suzy Favor-Hamilton is not Vivian Ward. She’s not the charmingly unrefined “hooker with a heart of gold” who dreams of a better life. She’s an Olympian with a successful real estate business, a $600,000 home and a loving husband and daughter.

A former world-class athlete voluntarily “going the distance” with the rich sleazeballs who frequent the high-roller tables at the glitziest casinos in Vegas? That’s not charming. It’s gross. And a little bit sad.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about has-been athletes unraveling in the wake of their inevitable retirement from professional sports. Ryan Leaf. Dennis Rodman. O.J. Simpson.

Those guys did some pretty terrible things, but as a former middle distance runner, I was genuinely rocked by Suzy’s admission. It’s usually male athletes who fall from grace after being “caught with their pants down” in the midst of some kind of crime or scandal. Suzy’s exposure was both more literal and more surprising.

As shocked and disappointed as I was when I first heard about this story, I found myself slowly drumming up some sympathy for poor Suzy. Why? Because something she said resonated with me: she missed the thrill of competition, and her double-life as a high priced call girl somehow filled that void.

Why she didn’t try filling that void with skydiving, base jumping, drinking tap water in Mexico or some other similarly-risky-but-less-morally-questionable behavior is beyond me. I miss the thrill of competition too, but I get my adrenaline fix by singing terrible country karaoke in bars full of drunk strangers. (If only Suzy and I had connected before this whole thing blew up—it all could have been avoided with a simple duet version of “Strawberry Wine” by Deana Carter!)

Also, for any other Olympic runners out there who are interested in leading secret lives as Vegas escorts, here’s a golden drop of advice: you might want to keep the whole Olympic runner thing under wraps. No matter how rich and successful they become, dudes will never stop bragging to each other about their “conquests”—even if they technically paid for them. Bedding an Olympian? You better believe that one’s gonna come out at next week’s poker night.

Liestrong

Speaking of getting caught with your pants down*, let’s talk about Lying Lance Armstrong.

I am well aware that technically, this story isn’t about running; it’s about running’s rude, less attractive cousin—cycling. But I think it deserves a mention because it centers on an issue that affects all endurance sports, including distance running: blood doping and the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Lance Armstrong’s recent Oprah interview—in which he confessed to using banned substances during his seven-year streak of Tour de France victories—dealt a heavy blow to athletes across the globe with highly disproportionate quads-to-biceps ratios.

I mean, if THE Lance Armstrong—a longtime proponent of sportsmanship who for years vehemently denied gaining any sort of unfair advantage through the use of banned substances—is actually a lying cheat, what does that mean for the rest of us? I feel like I’ve lost all faith in not only the purity of sport, but also in humankind in general.

The benefit of the doubt is dead to me. There is no longer any benefit. Benefit scammed thousands of people out of their life savings in an elaborate Ponzi scheme and then hightailed it to Mexico. Benefit borrowed your Mad Men season 2 DVD box set and then dropped off the face of the planet. Benefit ordered a dozen shots of Patrón on your tab and then slipped out the back door of the bar.

Now there is only doubt. Doubt in the legitimacy of every notable performance in distance racing. Doubt in the moral fortitude of my childhood heroes. Doubt in sportsmanship and the sanctity of honest competition. Of all the times I have been beaten in a race (not that there are very many), how many were true losses? I will never know. It’s not like Oprah is going to demand answers from every person who’s ever won a 5K.

It makes me sick to think of all of the social cause bracelets I have refused to wear out of loyalty to that original yellow silicone band. I politely accepted dozens of imposters—pink for breast cancer awareness, green for cervical cancer awareness, even blue for prostate cancer awareness—only to bury them at the bottom of my junk drawer.

Turns out, the only imposter in this sad situation is the man behind that rubber ring of hope. It’s a good thing Oprah is such a classy lady. If I had been the one sitting across from Lance when he dropped the doping bombshell, I probably would have kicked him in the nut.

Presidential run

Here’s a news item that further corroborates my longstanding theory that Maine is way too close to Canada for its own sanity, and that eventually it probably will just sort of quietly fade into Quebec.

Some crazy dude decided it would be super awesome to run from his home in Maine to the Presidential Inauguration in Washington, D.C. Total distance: 700 miles, or approximately 27 full marathons.

I don’t know about you, but my list of people for whom I would run 27 consecutive marathons is pretty short:

People for Whom I Would Run 27 Consecutive Marathons

1. Pat Sajak (assuming I have a spot as a contestant on Wheel)
2. Prince William (pre-Kate, obviously)
3. Carrot Top (if he was chasing me)

Sorry, crazy Maine guy—clearly my list is way too exclusive for an American president to make the cut.

In fairness, he did raise money for charity through his efforts, so I have to give him props for that. All I’m saying is that next time, maybe he could run to a Bon Jovi concert or something cool like that.


*I’m not really sure if that idiom applies here, but let’s just assume that at some point, Lance pulled down his pants to give himself a steroid shot in the derrière (that’s French for buttocks, since we’re also assuming that said offense occurred in France).

Sporty tampons: for serious athletes only

There I was, standing in the feminine-product aisle at the grocery store, faced with a serious dilemma. My stand-by brand was out of stock, and I knew that the longer I stood there mulling over which box to buy instead, the greater the chance that I would be spotted by an acquaintance and forced to engage in an awkward conversation in front of the tampon shelf.

I just wanted to hurry up and pick one so I could go find six other random items (because you can't just buy a box of tampons by itself) and get the heck out of there.

Finally, I decided that if I was going to stray from my go-to girly products, I might as well get a bargain. That’s how I ended up with these:

Although I’ve been an athlete for most of my life, I’ve never really been a fan of the “sporty” version of things that aren’t inherently sporty. To me, it seems like a half-assed marketing tactic meant to trick people into feeling more athletic than they actually are. In my experience, most real athletes feel the same way. (Come on, do you really want to fuel your workout with an energy bar made by Snickers?)

But the truth is, whether you’re aware of it or not, if you are a young to middle-aged female who exercises on a regular basis, you’re part of a growing consumer base that is becoming increasingly attractive to business marketers.

Think about it: how many fashion retailers have added fitness apparel to their brands in the last ten years? It started innocently enough, with a few tank tops here and some stretch capris there. Now, it seems like every time I walk into the Gap, the active wear section has added another shelf of yoga pants and two more racks of tech shirts. It’s like the Canada of clothing sections—innocently disguised as unthreatening hoodies and spandex shorts, but slowly taking over the world! Pretty soon, they won’t even sell jeans anymore.

But back to tampons. Adding sportswear to a women’s clothing line is one thing. Adding the word “sports” to a box of otherwise ordinary feminine products is another.

Are “sporty” tampons going to make me run any faster? Are they going to make me more limber and agile? Probably not. So, assuming they are not laced with steroids or prescription painkillers, what athletic advantage do they provide?

In a word, inspiration. Yes, you read that correctly. Put down that raised eyebrow and allow me to explain.

You see, each time you reach into the box, you’re not just picking up a tampon. You’re picking up a tiny package of encouragement.

When I pulled out the first one, I nearly collapsed with laughter. Printed on the wrapper, right next to the big S, were the words, Strive to do your best.

Here's the visual evidence because I knew that without it, you'd never believe me.

Hilarity quickly gave way to anger as I thought, You have to be kidding me. Decades of progress in the equality of women’s sports, and this is what it has come to?

I felt a hormone-fueled feminist rant coming on. In the interest of preserving my dignity, I preemptively employed my failsafe mood-correction strategy: sarcasm. (See title of this blog post.)

My best? I thought, rolling my eyes at that stupid little tube of cotton. I’m bloated, I feel like crap and my body is literally bleeding—but don’t worry, I’ll be sure to leave it all on the roads today.

Look, I’m not judging anyone who, whether they admit it or not, gets a little confidence boost from inspirational tampon quotes. I’m just saying that Kara Goucher probably doesn’t get her sports bras at the Gap, and Shalane Flanagan probably doesn’t owe her Olympic Trials marathon record to motivational Playtex wrappers.