I think letsrun posters should be embarrassed by threads like this one - not the "hobby joggers."



I compete as a masters athlete these days and take my training reasonably seriously. After four years of hard work, I've finally gotten to the point where I can keep up with some college runners in races.



But I really empathize with the struggles that beginner runners face - partly because I can still remember being overweight and out of shape. It is realy hard to get started in the sport - it takes alot of brutal training runs before runners high starts canceling out the suffering. Unlike sports like darts or ping-pong, running also has a really serious risk of injury. Runners do need advice and support - and the walk-run method is really sensible, for all the reasons people in the linked discussion raise.



It is frustrating for serious runners that the public often seems to be more impressed with a slow marathon than a fast 5 km (and casual runners are sometimes guilty of this as well), but I'm truly impressed by people like Oprah Winfrey that took on running as a challenge and trained really hard to acheive a goal that, for them, was really hard.