The Washington Post glorifies another defiantly dishonest white female American distance runner

When Yoda said, "Do or do not. There is no try," he was speaking specifically to narcissistic outdoorswomen

This summer, a Colorado resident, attention-glutton, and sponsored jogger named Erin Ton claimed to have summited, in record time, all 58 of the state’s “fourteener” peaks (summits 14,000’ or higher above the ocean of one’s choosing, typically Danny or Billy). Her Strava data, however, revealed that Ton had skipped the southernmost of these peaks, which is on private land and requires a permit to access.

Before commencing her endeavor, Ton had already established an inimical history with the management of that omitted summit, Culebra Peak. Shortly before starting her 14-day, 10-hour journey in mid-July, she acknowledged in the forum of 14ers.com that she was seeking a permit for Culebra, but didn’t want to deal with the owners. She also complained about the $150 permit fee.

Therefore, when Ton posted on Instagram on August 1 that she had set a “women’s self-supported 14er speed record,” she was either lying or experiencing extreme and selective amnesia. She later said that she never overtly claimed to have summited Culebra, which is akin to someone saying “I’ve traveled to all of the U.S. states,” and then, when an objector points out she’s never been to Hawaii, retorting “It was implied that I only meant states accessible by automobile.”

The entity in charge of keeping such records—”fastest known times,” or FKTs—are having none of the backtracking, post hoc claptrap Ton unfurled after observers discovered and remarked on her omission—even if all involved are being reserved, even gracious, in their comments, such as this one from a 14ers.com admin:

I sincerely hope she reconsiders her approach in doing the remarkable things and embraces a greater sense of humility, respect and the importance of a community.

Ton didn’t do what she wanted people to believe she did, and now she wants a record established for the non-category she just scurrilously carved out anyway.

That would be the whole story—sorry, ma’am but you lied, so try again another time, thanks—if not for a Washington Post scumbot-columnist deciding to foment the impression on Wednesday that Ton, despite chronic lapses into a colorfully spoiled-brat nature, is around 2,000 pounds of toughness in a ~100-pound body who deserves recognition for the great things she has done; never mind that she lied about the greatest triumph of all the ones she has asserted.

If this sounds familiar, it may be because The Washington Post has been running interference for Nike ever since Shelby Houlihan was busted for doping and suspended for four years in January 2021.

At this stage—or really, even on the day Houlihan disclosed her suspension five months after it had begun and started unspooling a laughable excuse to explain it—you would have to be a genuine, card-carrying imbecile to believe that Houlihan is blameless. Many of track and field’s most visible presences, however, are in fact genuine, card-carrying imbeciles, while most of the rest are cowards afraid to say what they really think.

As a result, the perception of Houlihan’s innocence—more accurately classified as an unspoken agreement among running’s melon-headed punditry to pretend that Houlihan is, or at least could be, innocent—has ample vim and vigor on its own. Major media outlets contributing to the sham only helps further solidify the emotionally derived conclusions already lodged in those swaying, gourd-like noggins.

Roman Stubbs’ story about the dishonest claim, “Erin Ton believes she set a record. The trail running community disagrees,” begins by describing the adverse weather and associated misery Ton faced during her quest—as if she hadn’t chosen both to be out there and to be running unsupported—and ends with a litany of Ton’s past physical challenges, including scoliosis and large tits. Ton calls the breast reduction she underwent five years ago “one of the best decisions I have made in my entire life.” I asked around, and we* think she should have added more overall value to the world by leaving her knockers the way they were even, and maybe especially, if this had meant running less. She might have dodged the problems she’s had from—get this—not eating enough to support the amount of running she does.

The reason this material is included is because it is meant to take the sting out of what it brackets, which is evidence that Erin Ton is not only a cheater but a defiant, charmless princess, someone who occasionally wears pink dresses on hikes and claims she never meant to incite any controversy. Stubbs tries to create the impression that Ton should be forgiven for her imperfections because what she did accomplish was downright impressive (not really; roaming around in the woods and taking photos of herself is this woman’s entire life). Stubbs proposes:

Her accomplishment — and what she chose to initially disclose about it — put Ton, an elite and polarizing trail runner, at the center of a debate about transparency and what constitutes a record.

If Roman Stubbs is really this stupid, I’ll help him: No, she didn’t break the record. What she did constitutes lying. The Washington Post bombards its readers daily with lies, often with bald, soft-looking columnists who look remarkably like the outlet’s bald, soft owner (although I suppose a great many of us do, after a certain age). So while this looks obscene to anyone who avoids outlets like the WaPo whenever possible, regular readers of this slime and dreck are primed to arm themselves with rainbow-emblazoned masks and Pfizer’s latest drool cups and swallow whatever garbage invaded their brains through heroically squinting, partially crossed eyes.

The explanation of what Ton does when not running or lying is well worded:

Each Thursday afternoon, Ton must come down from the mountains and work a part-time job at Berkeley Park Running Company in Wheat Ridge. It suits her: She shows up in her hiking shorts, a tank and a pair of shoes from La Sportiva, the company that sponsors her and helps pay some of the bills.

“Must come down” instead of simply “comes down” is a funny choice, as is the emphasis on Ton’s job being part-time and having no dress code. And here we learn that Ton is sponsored by La Sportiva North America. That company already sponsors so many questionable figures that there is no conceivable path forward La Sportiva can take toward even blinking at the fuss Ton just created. She’s apparently been a feisty bucket of unpredictability for a while, anyway.

A few other things about the column bear mentioning. One is the characterization of honesty as “a critical virtue of the adventure sports world.” While this is true in my experience of people who are serious about very-long-distance land journeys, if you took your cues from Instagram and the running media alone, you would assume everyone was a halfwit with an unslakable thirst for praise from strangers and a pathological liar.

The small but pungent editorial staffs of both Trail Runner and Outside Online both consist solely of lazy moral degenerates. The fact that Zoe Rom continues drawing a paycheck and David and Megan Roche have even a single coaching client between them speaks to the morass of shadiness, ignorance, dodginess, and craven behavior that has come to permeate the visible arm of “adventure sports,” i.e., pursuits for the well-off, hypersenstive, image-fixated, and vocationally underutilized.

People like the Roches, Rom, the Inside Tracker scammers, and Ton only exist thanks to this flamboyantly douchey collective growth on the body of the sport—that is, each other—over the past two decades or so; running, and in fact the planet, could survive very well without any of these characters and their high-energy but low-wattage antics.

I was also entertained by the detail of Culebra Peak being owned by some rich guy from Texas who made, or inherited, a bunch of oil money and decided to purchase the peak and the surrounding land—a staggering 83,000 acres, or about 129 miles, a hunk of territory nearly the size of Denver—for $105 million. Hunting occurs on the ranch, and it would not disturb me to learn one day that the owner had been found mauled to death by a bear or with the hoof of an elk having crushed his skull into tiny fragments with a single mighty stomp, along with the Lone Star-bred guck within. I have no love for land-hoarders even if I concede that this is what people with enough money are allowed to do.

While I’m at it, I hope every building and vehicle on the property is soon destroyed by fires, while the animals all magically escape (and are able to still find food). In fact, someone should take an armored tank up there, shoot heartily through the guy’s security goons (who surely drive Humvees) and scoot around near the peak smashing rocks around until the summit of Culebra Peak drops below 14,000’ and everyone loses interest in the place. Sometimes, it’s best to get back to basics and start fresh when problems like these arise.

Any traces of the Washington Post’s cheekily solemn motto, "Democracy dies in darkness," long ago surrendered to “Integrity is murdered in every column.” The clowns who work at these outlets will continue to relentlessly churn out stories about white women with easy lives suffering undue punishment and criticism for failing to obey rules most people learn as children. And while no one is perfect, the media’s obsession with portraying photogenic, ethically challenged gadabouts as practitioners of a new brand fairness is another sign of societal decay everyone is supposed to simply get used to.