The Wall Street Journal is in on the running gags, too

A nice balance between "well-earned sloth is great" and "dubiously earned speed is great"

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story featuring Mirna Valerio, apparently the only obese black woman in the United States capable of completing running races, or at least the only such person willing to be interviewed for mainstream articles glorifying the underappreciated art of locomotive torpor. (Latoya Snell has gotten her share of media attention for being fat, black, and slow, but Snell doesn’t even pretend to run anymore.)

The editors had a hard time deciding on a title for WSJ fitness columnist Jen Murphy’s landmark celebration of people who aren’t content to be slow, anonymous runners along with the rest of us* and are demanding a more equitable share of attention for their cobweb-gathering efforts.

The essay’s thrust is that more race directors need to recognize that slow, fat grifters are athletes too, and that race courses should therefore be kept open for absurd lengths of time to accommodate these underappreciated adipose-encased globlins and gadabouts. The piece also mentions massive bag of bespectacled swindling Martinus Evans, whose wife stole over fifty thousand dollars from the University of Connecticut in 2017 on his behalf.

Like others in its tiresome class, the essay ignores the fact that slow, fat marathoners and trail runners have been around for decades; the only difference is that they weren’t encouraged to pretend they belong in the same conversations as elite or even capable distance runners. The next addition to these “Who speaks for the slugs?” pitches will be a demand that slow black people be given discounted or free entries to major races as a step toward reparations. I’m not close to kidding, though it’s difficult to overreach in this area anymore even when heroically trying.

In February, Murphy wrote a column about Ken Rideout, who at the age of 51 ran 2:29:53 at the Chicago Marathon last October. The column noted Rideout’s upcoming effort at the March 5 Tokyo Marathon, which Rideout would complete in 2:29:26. For a 51-year-old, that time translates to around 2:12:10 for an open-age runner.

Because Rideout is exceptional but white, it’s necessary for Murphy (or anyone writing this article) to maximize the level of hardship Rideout has experienced in order to sell readers on the uniqueness of his grit. Conveniently, like everyone from South Boston, Rideout was once a boxer, automatically lending special toughness to his marathon training and racing inaccessible to never-pugilists.

Rideout’s now-established uniqueness of character is then used in turn to neatly explain his athletic uniqueness. It’s the general formula for reporters to avoid venturing anywhere near the possibility of their article’s subject having resorted to well-known but non-heroic methods to achieve the public profile of a sports-hero.

At the start of the BMW Berlin Marathon last September, he found himself warming up with Eliud Kipchoge, a Kenyan runner widely considered to be the best marathoner ever. Rather than be intimidated, he gave him a fist bump.

Despite not being intimidated, Rideout, in his own words “the biggest alpha male on the starting line,” would finish over 34 minutes behind Kipchoge.

“But he’s far older than EK,” you might protest. “That’s not what he meant.” And that’s probably true, although the real age difference between the two is open to question.

The point I’m making is that anyone can spout “I’ll die before I lose” nonsense when being compared only to the people he’s beating. Anyone at the top of any endurance-sports tier will tell you he’s exceptionally tough—Lance Armstrong comes to mind—and because such people are objectively tough compared to a typical race entrant, he may even believe it. And when a new hero takes the place of an Armstrong, that person suddenly becomes the gold standard for “bleeds as much as necessary to win.”

Murphy summarizes Rideout’s pre-Tokyo training:

According to the fitness tracker Strava, in recent weeks leading up to the Tokyo Marathon he averaged 85 miles of running a week. He typically runs 10 to 12 miles at a mellow pace three days a week. One to two days a week he’ll do tempo workouts. For example, he might log 15 miles that include a three-mile warm-up, 12 reps of a 1,000-meter distance at a five-minute, 10-second pace, then three miles for a cool down. Saturdays are typically his long mileage days of 20-plus miles. 

Leaving aside the lazy lack of real specifics here (how long a period is “recent weeks?”), this is an ambitious schedule for a 51-year-old. But would it get a 30-year-old, all else the same, to 2:12? Possibly, were the specimen sufficiently talented to run 2:08-2:09 on serious marathon training.

Then it’s on to Rideout’s strength work:

Mr. Rideout, who stands 5’10” and weighs 157 pounds, prides himself on his muscular physique. Three to four days a week he strength trains in his home gym. “I do a meathead workout for my upper body so I don’t get too skinny,” he says. He’ll perform three to four sets of 20 pull-ups using different hand grips then do a bench press, and kettlebell swings. He does squats for his legs and clamshell exercises for his glutes.

If those numbers for Rideout’s height and weight are exact, he’s a half-inch shorter than me and 20 pounds heavier. Those were my stats when I could run a little faster, and by elite standards, I’m borderline zaftig. Galen Rupp and Ryan Hall were listed at 5’ 11” and 130 pounds in their competitive primes. I can believe a thirty-year-old can run under 2:11 for the marathon on the training described, but one built like Ken Rideout is? Sub-27:00 10,000-meter American dude Chris Solinsky was considered a behemoth on the track at 6’ 1” and 165 pounds.

Rideout is giving away more than he realizes with his “so I don’t get too skinny” remark. I’m sure he knows that he would be faster if he weren’t carrying around at least fifteen pounds of lovely but performance-dehancing muscle. But while he gets media attention and maybe some prize money directly through running, it’s his personal coaching where he really makes bank.

I’m told Rideout successfully charges as much as $5,000 for individualized training plans, and he wouldn’t be able to do that were he merely running fast times. Anyone can see what a useful marathon-training plan for a runner of any age looks like, so Rideout, like those who write about him, needs a unique angle. So he injects the idea that he’s stumbled upon a brand-new combination of nutritional and strength-training hacks to get where he is—hacks he’s eager to tailor for the dupes who follow his Instagram and other social accounts. For a price.

In case this part isn’t weeping off the screen yet, of course I don’t think Rideout is doing this without drugs. That would be inspirational but lacks clear precedent.

A week after this WSJ hagiography, Outside Online ran an article about Rideout by Brian Metzler glorifying him and his toughness in similar—and even similarly naive—ways. Contra Murphy’s reporting on Rideout’s Strava data, Rideout told Metzler that he “makes sure that he stays between 70 and 80 miles per week.”

I like this bit toward the end:

Rideout has been eager to share his story—and fans and followers seem to appreciate his vulnerability—but insists he’s not special or extraordinary, especially as an athlete.

“Everyone has what I have. I’m an average guy” says Rideout.

When he’s talking about his racing mentality, Rideout is one-of-a-kind, the alpha in any group. But otherwise, he’s not extraordinary, and he wants as many average people as possible to know that they have what he has, or can. It all depends on whether he’s directly selling a line of bullshit or indirectly selling his fitness-guru services.