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.
Parents
Former Member
My husband is very supportive of my swimming and I think it is because I was a swimmer before we met so he knew it was vital to my life; it contributed to making me who I am. But he did find swim meets boring, but he would drive to them just in time to see me swim and then leave. But he came all the same.
Now, I do always see a doctor when I go home each year just for a checkup and all. One I don't see anymore said this to me, and don't forget, I am overweight: "you need to exercise." I told him I did, that I swam about 6 miles every day or so. He said, no, real exercise like walking.
And in Roatan's first triathlon down here, I was sitting around a restaurant with other swimmers and asked one woman, probably late 30s or so, if she swam Masters. Her response was this: Everyone is in Masters which is only known for lap swimmers; I can swim all day long without stopping, why would I want to be bothered? I was floored because not only did she not truly know that Masters can be whatever a swimmer wants it to be, she insulted lap swimmers. I asked her about her mile swim times and she told me she is always in the top 3. That triathlon was my first one down here and I was 3rd overall in the women, she was 7th.
Like someone else wrote here: put your money where your mouth is.
Donna
My husband is very supportive of my swimming and I think it is because I was a swimmer before we met so he knew it was vital to my life; it contributed to making me who I am. But he did find swim meets boring, but he would drive to them just in time to see me swim and then leave. But he came all the same.
Now, I do always see a doctor when I go home each year just for a checkup and all. One I don't see anymore said this to me, and don't forget, I am overweight: "you need to exercise." I told him I did, that I swam about 6 miles every day or so. He said, no, real exercise like walking.
And in Roatan's first triathlon down here, I was sitting around a restaurant with other swimmers and asked one woman, probably late 30s or so, if she swam Masters. Her response was this: Everyone is in Masters which is only known for lap swimmers; I can swim all day long without stopping, why would I want to be bothered? I was floored because not only did she not truly know that Masters can be whatever a swimmer wants it to be, she insulted lap swimmers. I asked her about her mile swim times and she told me she is always in the top 3. That triathlon was my first one down here and I was 3rd overall in the women, she was 7th.
Like someone else wrote here: put your money where your mouth is.
Donna
