I'm pretty highly offended right now about my precious Runner's World magazine. I was reading the August issue in the Q & A Ask the Experts section. The person asked the question "As a heavyweight runner, should I train differently than the skinny crowd?" Perfectly valid question. The answer discusses the standard answers of "yes, its harder on your joints, etc." But this is what they referred to the people in this "heavy" group as. Clydesdales and Athenas. In order to qualify as a Clydesdale, you are a man over 200 lbs. To qualify as an Athena, you must weigh in at 150 lbs. Although I'm under that weight, I don't think that its "heavy", but then I guess it could be heavy on a runner's physique (which I don't have), but I'm 5'7" and I expect to weigh more based on my height...are all the tall people of the world just big fat fatties now? Well, I guess not. I looked up the story of Athena (other than the obvious Athens connection I had no idea) and it appears that she was "born" fully grown and carrying armor. I then looked up "Athena Runner" on Google and got this. This makes me feel a little better as it appears there is some sort of "force to be reckoned with"and have special races.
I just didn't like it. If anyone has any insight or understands this better than I do, please let me know. I might just be angry out of ignorance on the whole thing.
That damned Athena thing upset me this morning because I've also decided I need to go back on Weight Watchers. Not pay for it, but just follow it again. I'd like to lose about 20 more lbs. But I'm not going to be crazy about it. Just try to eat a little more healthfully, since I've been a stressed out little "athena" lately.
Healthy Chocolate Snack Balls
3 days ago
3 comments:
First of all, YOU DO NOT NEED TO LOSE 20 MORE POUNDS. You're a skinny mini as it is! I don't know how I feel about the Athena and Clydesdale stuff, either. My brother's sister is an avid runner (ran Boston!), and is also quite tall (I'm guessing about 5'10"), so of *course* she qualifies as an Athena. She usually doesn't enter as one in races unless she wants to win the trophy for the Athena division. In a way she feels like it's cheating. I think it's a bad distinction, and doesn't take into account height or anything like that.
Most importantly, I concur with Sarah- You do not need to lose any more weight.
The main reason I post is that I know from my cycling buddies that "Clydesdale" is the term for riders above a certain weight, which is something like 170. I believe when Henrik rides in races they put him in the Clydesdales division.
"Clydesdale" can also be a clever way to make fun of people who type too loudly on their keyboards.
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