Poor Little Blog

My poor little blog gets neglected when I am too crazy at work. In fact, so did all of my running workouts last week, INCLUDING my long run. (It's bad when stress starts to leak into your body and you end up sore and achy from doing nothing.)

I am definitely back on track this week, although I will say that I've moved my runs indoors because of the cold. I figure that when the wind blows the big steel door open with amazing force and I have the push all of my weight against it to shut it while I take my dog on her evening walk, that it MIGHT be okay to do this. (I know, that was the biggest run-on sentence I think I have ever written.) Tonight is one of my double workouts...running AND sculpting. I am NOT looking forward to my 16 miler this weekend.

But what I REALLY wanted to write about was the Biggest Loser.

I don't know if anyone watches/notices/cares, but last week (not last night) Dane got kicked off. In his little "where are they now" video he said that his wife was training for a marathon and he decided to run it with her. He said it was so rewarding to run the entire thing with his wife, and they showed him crossing the finish line.
Bill swears he saw the clock say 5:53, but then in the little epilogue they said something about him running it in 3:53. I was like HOLY COW. Then it ticked me off, because I KNOW they train like 5-7 hours a day on that show, and I've seen them do all kinds of things that I could never physically do, but I was like "I train for marathons ONLY, and I can't do that!"

It also ticked me off that he wasn't training for a marathon specifically. I mean, I am sure he is very fit, but even Lance Armstrong had to train for the marathon.

But I kind of forgot about it.

Then, the next day Bill found all of these articles.

The gist of it is that he didn't actually finish the marathon because he got picked up in a van by the producers, driven, and then filmed finishing. I'm not going to make a call on where he was picked up, how far they drove him, how far he ran, or any of that...it seems like there is some dispute about these things.

NBC removed the video from online where he said he finished the marathon.

It just makes me sad. To me, that is one of the most inspiring shows out there. And finishing a marathon at any time is a huge accomplishment. Believe me, I have thought about cheating in the middle of races....like at the turnarounds. Haven't you ever thought to yourself "Ha! I could stop for water here and just go to the other side of the turnaround and cut out some mileage." I have. Especially when I am tired. But I could not live with myself if I did that. I know there is probably a lot of pressure from producers and all that, but I still feel sad about it. It makes me wonder what else they exaggerate. And wouldn't it make just as amazing of a story if he said he finished a half-marathon? I mean, the man lost 100 lbs in 8 weeks! What is there to lie about?!

And I see that he apologized...but what if he hadn't gotten caught?

It just disappoints me.