Hey now, you're not quite an all-star
Lately I've noticed the existence of running bloggers who offer "athletic resumes" that are heavy on stuff like "Very active on social media" and "yoga aficionado" but light on actual running accomplishments. They are usually well above average, but nowhere close to making a competitive impact on a national or even regional level.
As an inveterate and unapologetic wise-ass, I am tempted see this as tantamount to all-stars in a city men's softball league listing their home-run and RBI totals on their LinkedIn profiles, or equivalent to someone who once made the high-school state finals in the 400-meter individual medley introducing himself as "Attorney and elite swimmer Joe McWannabe." In other words, as the clueless blather of people who fail to understand what it really means to be a standout at something.
But as these "athletic resumes" seem aimed primarily at lobbying for swag from potential sponsors who need attractive bodies and faces to market their products at least as much as they need fast legs, it actually makes sense for good-looking but otherwise non-extraordinary runners to have such things handy. As silly as I find a document of this sort advertising sporting feats that are mundane at best, many companies exist that happily give out cases of energy bars sports drinks in exchange for fit, smiling people wearing the company uniform, even if that uniform is never going to be the first one across any finish line.
The phenomenon of companies using pretty people in addition to top athletes to promote their products is nothing new, of course. What is new, at least to me, is the phenomenon of people gaining or hoping to gain sponsorship from such companies developing -- at least for blogging purposes -- ideas about their abilities as athletes ranging from exaggerated to delusional. I don't think you would ever see this in sports like golfing or bowling or tennis. I think the difference, as it often is, relates to how road races operate -- the elites and everyone else usually take off at the same time, and mid-pack or half-decent runners may literally rub elbows with the fastest people in the world. This in turn may put the idea in some people's heads that being, say, 45 minutes to an hour off the world marathon record isn't really that much and that winning an age-group prize in the Deadfart Memorial Marathon is actually pretty damn good.
I'm not knocking those who, though persistence and self-promotion, manage to get free stuff from shoe companies (rarely) or sports-nutrition companies (often). That's just smart capitalism. I'm just laughing at anyone who begins to believe the hype they originally attached to their own names in a programmed effort to appear more special than they are or ever will be, athletically speaking.