I love Runner's World magazine. It's often got impossibly ripped people on the front, and pictures inside of abs the kind of which belong to models and/or elite runners. Eye candy, even if in my wildest dreams I couldn't find the time or motivation (or stay away from the icecream) long enough to train enough to look like that.
But that said, the variety of body shapes and sizes at longer distance events is astonishing, and brilliant. A quote from the a recent Runner's World article by Mark Remy on Rules to Run By includes a gem of a quote: "Not everyone who looks fast really is, and not everyone who looks slow really is." I'd also add that not everyone who looks intimidating and unapproachable really is - appearances can be deceiving in many ways.
Last year I went to a road race event. Local clubs were heavily represented, all age groups and speeds were on course. Once their race was over, a group of teenage lads sauntered around having ditched their race singlets. Unlike many of the Runner's World cover specimens (but probably like a lot of the runners on the inside pages with their shirts still on) these young guys were skinny, pale-chested and ropey, but they were working it, big time. They probably had picked about the most receptive audience-for-body-type possible!
So is there eye-candy at running events? Yes. Does it matter? Only as a side show, or until everyone gets sweaty, snotty and muddy enough that we're all pretty much equal. Grovelling is grovelling, no matter how it's packaged.
I could ask my husband for the male perspective of sex appeal and running, but he's training for the Christchurch marathon and has gone to bed early. Like I said...
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