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April 08, 2006
1:55:15/155
A bunch of 1s and 5s. Ran four big laps around Pontcharra. The last lap felt tough. Haven't run that far in a while, and yesterday's speedwork left me with stiff, slightly sore legs from the first step. These days are the nicest running days of the year, though. Need to get out and enjoy them before it gets too warm.
The marketing organization from the Paris half-marathon sent me a diploma that arrived yesterday with a questionnaire. Nathalie looked at it, then asked me whether she ought to frame it. She already did that with my computer science diploma. I came home one day and it was hanging over my desk. After that I made sure to hide my other diplomas. Here's the one from the race, since it'll fall off the front page after a couple of days:
Tim ought to run races like that. He'd really be happy to get all the marketing goodies they hand out. Medals, diplomas, T-shirts, sacks with sponsors' logos, and so forth.
Posted by Mark at April 8, 2006 01:45 PM
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Comments
What, you're self esteem is not healed with band-aid diplomas and free goo-gaws? Maybe you are really sick :-) I saw a bit of that at the one organized "fun run" I attended, not to mention professional conferences. In the professional venue, it's scary the way I was enticed at first until I realized how manipulated I felt.
In the sports event, I find it almost demeaning: you run for the challenge, the competition, not for the feel-good fake diploma and the goodies. It's like they have to give you a souvenir so you'll remember the race positively, but the souvenir you really want (the race photo), they know you want it and make you pay a lot for it. As Tim demonstrates, they are treating people like children.
Posted by: Andy at April 11, 2006 01:14 AM
Just go, and ignore all the marketing. At least we're not so good we have people riding next to us pointing cameras up our noses.
This one was too big a race, however. 21,000 people signed up. 17,886 finished. The better ones for you and me are the local races with 100-200 runners, set up by the local running club, and more or less organized.
Except for a marathon. If you're going that far, you want somebody very competent organizing it.
Posted by: Mark at April 11, 2006 09:02 PM