Marathoning: Fringe or Extreme Sport?
Apparently that is what the folks at the Victoria (Tx.) Advocate classify it as.
At the bottom of a really nice story in Monday's paper about Victoria's Missy Janzow, who ran 3:33:53 to qualify for Boston the second year in a row, the following appears:
"Billy Mau covers fringe and extreme sports for the Victoria Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6538 or email him at bmau@vicad.com."
Somebody has to be joking, right?
Frisbee golf? Fringe sport. Marathoning? Mainstream.
I'm hoping that Billy normally covers soap box derby, inline skating or something for the Advocate, everybody else had the day off and/or that the person laying the page out just copied Billy's address and phone number from an older column.
If not, well I'm not quite sure what to think.
(Actually, I e-mailed Billy at the same time Monday night that I was preparing this post and Billy responded via e-mail today on Tuesday. Here's his response.)
"The definition of fringe out here is a little fuzzy. Basically everything that isn't football/baseball/basketball/golf is "fringe" or "extreme" depending on the sport. While marathoning may not be truly fringe, it isn't exactly mainstream either. Some would also argue that running 26 miles is pretty extreme, but that's neither here nor there.
"I generally would rather write about the moto-cross riders out here for my column, but this one was kind of dropped on me from above.
"Thanks for taking the time to ask the question though. I grew up in Conroe (even wrote for the Courier briefly) and it's good to hear from folks in that general area."
Billy Mau
At the bottom of a really nice story in Monday's paper about Victoria's Missy Janzow, who ran 3:33:53 to qualify for Boston the second year in a row, the following appears:
"Billy Mau covers fringe and extreme sports for the Victoria Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6538 or email him at bmau@vicad.com."
Somebody has to be joking, right?
Frisbee golf? Fringe sport. Marathoning? Mainstream.
I'm hoping that Billy normally covers soap box derby, inline skating or something for the Advocate, everybody else had the day off and/or that the person laying the page out just copied Billy's address and phone number from an older column.
If not, well I'm not quite sure what to think.
(Actually, I e-mailed Billy at the same time Monday night that I was preparing this post and Billy responded via e-mail today on Tuesday. Here's his response.)
"The definition of fringe out here is a little fuzzy. Basically everything that isn't football/baseball/basketball/golf is "fringe" or "extreme" depending on the sport. While marathoning may not be truly fringe, it isn't exactly mainstream either. Some would also argue that running 26 miles is pretty extreme, but that's neither here nor there.
"I generally would rather write about the moto-cross riders out here for my column, but this one was kind of dropped on me from above.
"Thanks for taking the time to ask the question though. I grew up in Conroe (even wrote for the Courier briefly) and it's good to hear from folks in that general area."
Billy Mau
posted by WalkSports.com | 2:37 PM
5 Comments:
My guess is that no reader of this blog would consider marathoning to be an extreme sport, but that the vast majority of the readership of the Victoria Advocate would indeed consider marathoning to be an extreme sport.
Pass me those pork rinds, honey, the big game's about to come on!
Steeeve
LMAO at Steeeve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
pork rinds and beer! don't forget the beer!
I heard someone say last weekend that Car racing occupies quite a bit of television time. I would not consider car racing a fringe sport, but I think people would enjoy watching people run in circles rather than drive in circles.
I know before I started to run, I’d to enjoy watching the elite athletes run really fast.
If the Houston Marathon (or other long and short event(s)) was on Sunday at noon (hypothetical of course), how would the ratings fare. People enjoy watching football games in extreme conditions, so harsh environments might get a bigger draw.
Just Some Random Thoughts…
Running--not extreme.
Marathon running--extreme.
100m? 1000m? 1500m? Sensible.
42100m? Nutty. Flat out nutty.
Come on, only 0.15% of the population will even try it. It's not sky diving, but it's pretty out there.
Besides, if it was easy/normal none of us would even consider it--except as training for an even longer run.
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