Quote: (12-07-2010 01:51 AM)Jim Kirk Wrote:
A month has passed already, but I ran and finished the NYC marathon November 7 in 5.5 hours. It was the first one I ever ran. I highly recommend the experience – I was thinking of writing a series of articles about the day and what I had to do to run it – but some observations I know the folks here would appreciate –
I got a real good look at the world class runners. Before the race starts – we are all in various corrals around Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island. The elite women go first – followed by the elite men and ‘competitive men and women’ and then Wave 1 and so forth. The elite field walked up through a fenced off partition with a police escort – I was about 8 feet away.
In general, the first 50 finishers for the men in any marathon with a large purse are Kenyan or Ethiopian – maybe one or two from Ecuador/Columbia. I took a look at their physiques – the Kenyan men’s lower legs are about the width of my forearm. They can’t be more than 130 pounds tops and about 5’ 5” average.
In contrast, far more Caucasion women finish at or near the top of marathons. Seeing Irish-American Shalene Flanagan standing next to a male Kenyan champion for example, despite how thin the women are, look far far healthier and stronger than the Kenyan men. There were a lot of very fit runner’s legs and asses in spandex that morning. In the entire ‘elite’ pack going up the bridge that morning – I would say 70% were Africans and South American (by that I mean Ecuadorean, Brazilian, etc.) - the rest were northern European white. No Asians – no Italians or darker skinner whites. Now contrast that to the 48k people with me in the corrals -
Amongst the people on the field – it looked like 80% Caucasion, 13% Hispanic from South America, 6% Asian and 1% African-American/African. It was like I had hit the quest for the SWPL Holy Grail. Of that amount – it was about 65% male and about 35% female. Interesting note – I ran the race at 206 pounds – I should be about 172. (My 206 is way way way down from where I was after finishing up my first year at the Law Firm I am at now 6 years ago)
There were men running the race in my general weight class – but the women – across the Board - were extremely fit. I saw perhaps six other women packing a body weight (at the same percentage over) I am overweight. Reason being (I think) male organs and lungs are bigger in general and able to handle the increased load on the joints and provide oxygen into the blood stream if overweight. A woman’s organs are smaller and cannot handle the increased load that weight places on the system as opposed to a male. The result is that of the 17,000 or so women running the race – about 10,000 of them are physically ‘perfect’ whether they are 22 years old or 45 years old. There were hundreds, if not thousands of knockouts in Staten Island that morning – the women’s field is more fit than the male by necessity.
Which brings me to the other point – among some of my wife’s gabbing unmarried 35 something pseudo-girlfriends here in downstate New York – running a marathon is the chick equivalent of a man having a 10 inch wang. The bragging before, during and after the race is off the wall – I guess they can’t help it. Who cares if Mrs. Kirk has 3 kids 6 years of age and under in the household – what is that in comparison to running a marathon. Running a marathon also has effects on other, even married, woman – a woman in my office tried the medal on when I was not looking.
It gets white people acting kooky – 2 out of my 3 superiors said nothing to me the morning after – but I found out from the chicks in the office that both of these guys were looking my name up on the computer that morning to see if I finished. I did send some of these picks to our clients – who then mentioned it to the head honcho – who then a week later – said congrats after people upstate were ‘raving’ about my pictures. Now I know I am sounding cunty myself – but this is another insight into what so many talk about here about not being ‘believed’ when you talk about your experiences. Further, there are very few opportunities to find a ‘crew’ that is going to help you improve yourself – or encourage you to do something like this, or frankly anything because no one does anything to begin with.
Here are some more sports examples – I have my 4 year old son in gymnastics – the classes at the school near me end for boys at age 6 and this school is good enough to have sent girls to the Olympics over the years. I think all round gymnastics with the pommel horse, the rings and stuff is about as good an exercise and coordination training as you can get – but because of the way things are set up – you can’t get it. Boys can do baseball – woohoo.
You can do karate – but if you want a real school its’ hard to find. I went to Japanese kickboxing school for a year in New York City and learned – but if I spend the equivalent of a high end gym membership money a month for my kids – I don’t want GrandMaster Chain Link Fence down at the mall teaching them. Yeah – that 8th degree black-belt – sure whatever. Its’ just the Swipple parents are used to dropping little Johnny off at the school at the mall while they shop for XXL underwear at Cache.
Oh wait – what about the pool – well my Town has an indoor pool – a real nice one but you have to join and a family membership is about $600 and they don’t have a day use rate. That’s in addition to the Village summer outdoor pool which costs 350$ per year – oh – and if you live in the Village and don’t join the Village pool – you can’t go in as someone’s guest.
What about soccer (The sport of champion Swiples) – well they have the practices at 8:00 pm and the games at 9:30 am on Sundays – sorry I won’t do that – Sunday is family day and I work till 8:00 to often to freeze my ass off with other Swiples with Starbucks cups. Besides – I think a bunch of 7 year old girls playing soccer is silly.
The stuff I saw this past summer out running through Long Island and Queens. Passing suburban warriors playing hardcore softball – all hard and shit. Guys 350 pounds stretching before the big game – making sure the bags half distance out could be covahed! Conferences with the pitcher and catcher deciding whether to lob the ball to the left or to the right. They getten’ they exercise on. I was running up hills and beating young people on bicycles.
Black people out running usually smiled and said hello and we would exchange salutes. I had one white male acknowledge me once all year.
Is it an accident that Viagra ads run during golf tournaments?
Here is a link to where I did most of my running the past 5 months - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn-Queens_Greenway
In July I got up to running 6 miles in 58 minutes – 6 mph. The part of the bikeway I ran – at the top right – is within a 15 minute drive of 2 million people. It’s on the Long Island Sounds and the sun sets over the Throgg’s Neck Bridge. I never ran past or saw more than 15 runners using the 6 mile path at any one time – most of the time it was 7 runners and under. But here’s the thing – once I could do 6 miles in an hour – there were only 5 people (I saw them repeatedly) that were faster than me on that trail – two were Hispanic males – two white males and one white female who was the fastest of them all – doing 9 mph at least. Think about that – with so many people even within walking distance – no one was out.
Really – to have anything in this country you have to swim against the tide in everything.
Why is that?