A "Triathlons and Marathons are bad for you!" story...

I once had my cousin, who was a world class triathlete, who is actually in the Canadian sports hall of fame, tell me I was crazy for running marathons.  Then I found out she did Kona and was 10th female over all.  I kind of took that one with a grain of salt.   She likes running, but clearly not long distance (Kona was her one and only IM, she was invited).

Just go with the punches and continue to lead by example.  I don't even bother setting people straight.  Although for the most part I don't have that issue, just a few odd balls.  Most are impressed with my physical activity and I know I have inspired a few to move towards an active life as well.

That's pretty normal. People with no interest in endurance sport have all sort of myth-like ideas about such sports. The "limited number of beats" one is pretty bad though. How is it even allowed to be that stupid?

I get the "marathons are bad for you" sometimes, but I don't care. If I did sport to impress others, I'd join a gym, train my abs and take my shirt off as often as possible. I've found that around the HIM-distance people stop being impressed and are more confused/weirded out. Seriously, if you go up to someone and say "I ran a half marathon" they'll be like "that's cool, running is nice!", but if you tell people about iron-distance events they're like "... what?".

my standard response for these sorts of comments is the "I do what I love" angle. Ask them what they love to do and most of them reply with something either sedentary, eating, watching tv, playing video games etc. they usually realize what they are talking about and drop it.

The only fit person in the room, you say? Sounds like they're not really talking to you, but trying to convince themselves they dont need to exercise.

Anyway, they're wrong. I'm no doctor, but I would advise doing more triathlons.  

Also, beer is good for you.

Same goes for the 35-39 males in southwest Florida.  

The "limited number of heartbeats" theory is popular in my neck of the woods.  I would laugh out loud, but that gets my heart rate up.  And my parents always tell me that I'll ruin my knees. 

jami

If it's annoying (and I would kind of agree that it is), when they ask you about what's coming up, you say, "nothing really planned right now."

Then, without missing a beat, you ask them, "so what do you think of (insert pro sport team here) chances in the playoffs?"

Annoyance solved.

I guess I'm pretty lucky, this sort of thing doesn't seem to happen to me.  Most of the people around me are either in shape, or at least understand that it would be better if they were.  In response to the 'limited heartbeats' thing, my resting HR dropped from 80 to 45.  That's a lot of saved beats every day! 

I do agree with them about the beer thing though, it IS good for you.

This...x1000

But if someone is able to make a comment such as "running is bad for your knees", I simply agree with them.  I do this as a hobby...I'm not out to change the world.

people come up with anything they can to justify what they do or don't want to do.

If people believe that limited number of hearts beats crap then why do they slam amps, and full throttles all day making their heart beat 150 a minute non-stop?

I get it at work sometimes. Been told I look  like a monkey eating bananas, been made fun of stretching. Strained something at one point and walked around with a kind limp. A 350+ pounder that breaks a sweat just walking made fun of me almost non-stop all day.

When I was dieting I was drinking a slim fast and eating a banana for breakfast. The guy that called me a monkey said he cant drink that garbage, to much sugar. Said this while he is at his desk with a GIANT pastry and a 24 oz pepsi.

Just smile and nod. I try to and dont take it as hard as I used to..... That said on a few occasions I have thrown something back like "yeah it probably is healthier to sit on the couch and eat chips every night....."

I'm a real noobie, and I even get that already!  My knees will go bad, ankles will snap, back will hurt, blah, blah, blah...

BTW-My resting heart rate went down a lot, too - from 83-64 BPM.  So, I did the math.  Because of that decrease in resting heart rate, I bank:

19               Beats/minute

1,140          Beats/hour

27,360        Beats/day

820,800      Beats/month

9,986,400   Beats/year

So, even if my HR goes up to my workout max. (158) for an hour every day, I still only use:

158-64=94 extra beats/minute x 60 minutes= 5,640 of my daily savings of 27,360, leaving me 21,720 beats in the bank every day!

I'll still live longer than the couch potatoes!  HA!  Math wins over myth again!!! 

(OCD moment over now.) 

Love this, nice work.  Oh and OCD with numbers and data is fine w/ me!

Most people are not in their resting heart rate a majority of the day though.  You'd have to probably double that and you'd probably still be off. 

The best one I encountered was with a guy at work who is a die hard cyclist. Used to race pro, now is on the Landis Trek team. I've seen the x-rays of his shattered shoulder from a wreck in a crit, and I know of other injuries he's had. So when he told me "with running it's not a matter of IF you get injured, but WHEN" and tried to convince me that running is bad for the knees, etc, I had to fight to keep from responding with a comment about HIS injuries.

Other than that it seems I mostly either hang out with athletes of some kind, or with people who appreciate it even if they're not involved. I don't consciously steer my socialization that way, it just happens. 

I tore my acl in a mud run race in August - right after it happened and while I was on crutches I get the "see that is why I don't exercise". I'm thinking - yeah, this one fluke accident over all the miles I've ran or ridden- yep you're right - I should just go home and get fat. 

FWIW - I'm the only one where I work who runs regularly, does races, and I've just started the triathlon thing last year. 

People are so dumb sometimes.