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
My spouse is supportive of my swimming. I swam a lot when we first got married (not competetively, just for health) but I stopped and haven't been back for 5 years. Now that I'm back in the pool, I think she's glad because I have gained too much weight and that's not something a spouse feels comfortable saying outright. She maintains her weight by just not eating much. I love food and now that I'm 37, I can look at a potato chip and gain a pound.
Most of my friends seem to respect swimming as a sport that requires and enormous amount of strength. They will swoon when I tell them I swam 700 yards. For those who poopoo swimming, I chalk it up to ignorance. Classic example: When I was in high school, I was one of the top swimmers on our team. The school had trouble getting a coach for us one year and so they made a softball coach our coach out of desperation. Being it was his job and all, he did what he was told. Well, we ended up making up our own workouts for the first few weeks. The guy was clueless, but he had huge misconceptions about the sport. A guy who played football decided to join the team as a diver. This guy was huge, and ended up playing football in college and eventually for an arena league team. Anyway, at one practice, the coach made the statement that the football guy could wipe the floor with me in a sprint. There is no way this big football player can lose against me, a then 16 year old, 155 pound swimmer of 9 years, right? A couple of my teammates saw an opportunity and made a bet with the coach that I'd win easily. They knew better and so did I. It was a 50 free. I loafed it and beat him by 4 lengths. The coach was flabbergasted. Sometimes you just gotta show these non-believers in person.
My spouse is supportive of my swimming. I swam a lot when we first got married (not competetively, just for health) but I stopped and haven't been back for 5 years. Now that I'm back in the pool, I think she's glad because I have gained too much weight and that's not something a spouse feels comfortable saying outright. She maintains her weight by just not eating much. I love food and now that I'm 37, I can look at a potato chip and gain a pound.
Most of my friends seem to respect swimming as a sport that requires and enormous amount of strength. They will swoon when I tell them I swam 700 yards. For those who poopoo swimming, I chalk it up to ignorance. Classic example: When I was in high school, I was one of the top swimmers on our team. The school had trouble getting a coach for us one year and so they made a softball coach our coach out of desperation. Being it was his job and all, he did what he was told. Well, we ended up making up our own workouts for the first few weeks. The guy was clueless, but he had huge misconceptions about the sport. A guy who played football decided to join the team as a diver. This guy was huge, and ended up playing football in college and eventually for an arena league team. Anyway, at one practice, the coach made the statement that the football guy could wipe the floor with me in a sprint. There is no way this big football player can lose against me, a then 16 year old, 155 pound swimmer of 9 years, right? A couple of my teammates saw an opportunity and made a bet with the coach that I'd win easily. They knew better and so did I. It was a 50 free. I loafed it and beat him by 4 lengths. The coach was flabbergasted. Sometimes you just gotta show these non-believers in person.
