Newbie runners

I wish it could be cleared up whether there WAS a heckler or not -- if there was, that's awful and I feel really bad for anyone who was heckled, and really bad for all the volunteers who put on a really great race only to have it interfered with by someone being unpleasant.

If there WASN'T a heckler, I wish someone would come onto this thread and say so. I would hate this thread to come up if someone googles 'Raheny 5'; if the heckler story isn't true then it's really unfair to everyone who worked so hard on the race to have this big discussion about the awful things that supposedly happened there.

In answer to sillysocks’ original query, about what faster runners think of slower runners. From my own experience, faster runners have always been really nice and encouraging to me, both by just being friendly and saying ‘well done’ when I was a real beginner, and by encouraging me to push harder, try to stay with them, when I got a bit faster and fitter.
Once I’d been running a while and new people started joining our group who were at a more beginner stage than me, I didn’t think anything in particular, really – I didn’t think they were any different to me. I’d encourage them and be pleased when they enjoyed running/racing, but I didn’t compare paces or anything – we were all just people out running.
I’m impressed by the frontrunners in races, aware of the people of my own pace around me who I’ll be racing, and impressed by everyone who finishes behind me too. Anyway, no one should ever be sneery about someone finishing behind them – for all they know it could be a national-level runner coming back from injury, or a speedy woman just back from having a baby. I know in parkrun a woman told me a man came up to her after it one week to say he was delighted to beat her at last, not realising she was quite far along in her pregnancy .
When I first started running, I used to often see Dick Hooper training in Raheny. (I think he was training for the Malin-Mizen marathons). I knew who he was, but I was so happy to be out running and I didn’t think I should keep my head down in shame to be plodding past him or anything. I was at the ‘run to the next park bench, then walk a bit’ stage, but I was delighted with myself and felt like a runner, so I’d always give him a little wave as we passed each other. And he always waved back. If a three-time Olympian isn’t above nodding and waving at a very beginner beginner as he passes, then I think there’s no cause for ‘faster’ runners to be lording it over ‘slower’ ones. Happy running, everyone!

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

There is definitely a fair amount of fear.

The thing i most love about racing, the 'fear', get it every race still even though i'm racing over 4 years. The 'fear' i get is beating myself, the one & only goal i have when i'm race fit. Not to be confused with the 'fear' after a feed of beer!!