This was in today's "Dear Abby" column in the paper:
DEAR ABBY: I am a 55-year-old female who competes in triathlons for fun, fitness and health. I consulted my doctor because I was having foot pain. When I told him I was a runner and was preparing for a marathon race, his response was, "At your age, you could hardly call it a race."
I was shocked. I repeated the insulting comment to my husband, who has never supported me in this nor attended my races. He replied, "Well, you don't actually consider yourself an athlete, do you?"
I am so offended that I want to dismiss both my doctor and my husband. I just finished a race with 5,000 women. Every one of them was fabulous and serious, no matter how old or what they looked like. It was the spirit of the sport that mattered. At what age does one stop being an athlete? -- OLDER ATHLETE, EUGENE, ORE.
This raised some interesting questions in my mind about support, encouragement, or the lack thereof. I don't want to discuss the "athlete-yes-or-no" question. Instead, I'd like to know how people out there deal with non-supportive spouses, friends, co-workers, doctors, etc.
My own experience includes being teased by my co-workers for "getting beat by a 70-year-old woman." (This was after a big meet where they viewed my results on the Internet.) This came from men who are at least 50 pounds overweight and can barely walk from their cars to their desks.
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Former Member
Originally posted by Hawaiiwoman
As a divorced masters swimmer I date occasionally. A few weeks ago I went out to dinner with a guy who commented that he wasn't sure he could handle being involved with a women who is stronger than he is! I guess the sleeveless dress was a mistake! :rolleyes:
I used to make much more of an effort to date than I do now, but... that's probably another thread. Anyway, I can remember quite a few times when I would tell a guy that I swim with a Masters team. Immediately the guy would launch into some sort of story (excuse) about why he couldn't swim, or why he wasn't a very good swimmer, or whatever.
I could never quite figure out why they were so quick to volunteer that information, unless they thought I was going to adminster some sort of pre-dating swimming test!
Oh, wait, there was one guy who was just the opposite. He told me that he swam year-round age-group until he got burned out at age 14. Then he went on to tell me that he was sure that if he had kept swimming that he would have made the Olympic Trials, because some of his former teammates did. Yeah, right.
Originally posted by Hawaiiwoman
As a divorced masters swimmer I date occasionally. A few weeks ago I went out to dinner with a guy who commented that he wasn't sure he could handle being involved with a women who is stronger than he is! I guess the sleeveless dress was a mistake! :rolleyes:
I used to make much more of an effort to date than I do now, but... that's probably another thread. Anyway, I can remember quite a few times when I would tell a guy that I swim with a Masters team. Immediately the guy would launch into some sort of story (excuse) about why he couldn't swim, or why he wasn't a very good swimmer, or whatever.
I could never quite figure out why they were so quick to volunteer that information, unless they thought I was going to adminster some sort of pre-dating swimming test!
Oh, wait, there was one guy who was just the opposite. He told me that he swam year-round age-group until he got burned out at age 14. Then he went on to tell me that he was sure that if he had kept swimming that he would have made the Olympic Trials, because some of his former teammates did. Yeah, right.
