Living In A Group Pyschosis World

We happy few that consider ourselves runners, through lifestyle or extension of training goals, sometimes must deal with the...well lets just say indelicacy of the sport. Today I won't be talking about skin rubbing hot spots near the armpits or more delicate areas. Today I won't be discussing the use of pasties to control nipple bleeding.

No today I will recreate a conversation with a non-runner completely agog at me running ten miles in 105 degrees and then flopping myself under my personal water cooler to douse myself in cold water.

Non-Runner: "Did you just go running?"

Me:"No I laid in the parking lot and took at nap for almost two hours. Here's your sign." (Inside joke-go rent Blue Collar Comedy Tour)

NR: "How far did you go?"

Me: "Ten miles. not far."

Here is where non-runners ask the most self-reflecting question of their doubts:
NR: "When you run that far do you ever stop and walk?"

Here is where anyone who runs any respectable distance mentally or physically rolls their eyes. You see to answer NO, I would have been lying, it was a hard run that day and I did walk a few times to drink and stretch out my calves and hamstrings. Hundreds of thousands of people have completed marathons based on run/walk routines, there is no shame in it, but its the tone, the insinuation in the way its asked. If I say YES, then it validates non-runner that runners really aren't that great, I really am not that great. Its a form of group psychosis that doesn't allow someone in the group to break away and be successful making everyone else in the group feel inadequate and weak. So in good salesmen form, I respond to a question with a question.
Me: "Why do you need to know if I walk some or run the whole thing?"

aha. See no non-runner has to either drop it or reveal the reason of the curiosity in the first place. Answer honestly and you get an honest answer, change the subject and subject is dropped.

One time I had just finished a marathon and wasn't very happy with my time. Someone asked me if I walked at all when I had just finished going 26.2 miles the day before and I was sore as hell. I kind of lost it.
Me: "What does it matter if I runned it all or walked some of it. Its more running in one day than you've done in the last decade. You've never run a marathon, so what gives you the right to question my race? Why can't you just be appreciative of the fact I accomplished something that meant a lot to me? A little pat on the back. "

The moral of the story is people who don't understand endurance running, or triathlons, or cycling a century in a day will subconsciously try to beat you down. "Doesn't it hurt your butt to ride that long?" "Why get up so early, why not just sleep in?" "Your going back out to the lake, I thought you almost drown out there last week?"

They don't mean too, but they can be too mean. Negative energy questions spoil the runners high, demean the accomplishment of a five hour ride, suck you down faster than bad form in a pool. Meet these questions head on.

Don't become a victim of peer group mentality. When you rise up from the norm and start to gain some self esteem because you have lost weight, created a long term goal and chopped up all kinds of personal bests getting there, when you have become a better person through exercise, protect it with all your heart. Don't alibi or dismiss the disciplined, proactive, goal oriented person you have become.

Me: "Yeah I walked a couple of times, you want to go out with me next time I run?"

Non Runner: "No way that's to far for me. Your nuts."

Me: "Yeah thats what I thought."