'AITA for signing up for a marathon last minute when my friend wants running to be 'her thing?'
"AITA for signing up for a marathon last minute when my friend wants running to be 'her thing?'"
I (38) recently signed up for a marathon a week before the race, after finding out I would need rotator cuff surgery. I haven’t been able to climb, which is my first love, but have always enjoyed running casually.
I’ve done a few races before, one marathon (without training) so I felt like I could probably do it again, and it’s something that keeps me motivated and gives me a sense of accomplishment, especially as I’m preparing for an upcoming surgery.
My friend was planning to run the marathon but hadn’t trained until the week of. I figured we could both run really slowly together. The whole week I was trying to find a bib, I told her that I was planning to sign up too. She was fine with that until I told her I finally found a bib, she got really upset.
I had posted on Facebook saying I was going to run it last minute and she FREAKED OUT. She told me that running this marathon was “her thing” and feels like I’m trying to take over something that’s special to her. She said that me posting about it on Facebook would overshadow her post. I never saw it that way—I just thought we could even support each other during the run.
She accused me of being a sh--ty friend, and just said some really terrible things to me. At the run itself, I lost her at the first mile. I texted her like 5 times, called her 3 times. She ignored them all. She called me two house later and she’s 3 miles behind me and tells me to stop and wait for her.
At this point I had decided to run the marathon for myself and I’d see her at the end so I said no. Which she insists is a sign that I am a selfish and unsupportive friend. She was so mad that I was ahead of her that she quit at mile 16 and cut the course the finish with a better time than me.
Which I mean, is fine. I finished in 6:15 and was proud of myself in the end. She is insistent that running is “her thing” and says I’m not allowed to engage in it, which feels literally insane to me. She was originally going to help me with post-surgery stuff, but now she’s decided not to, saying she feels “betrayed” by me doing the marathon.
I don’t feel like running a race should be something that “belongs” to one person, especially since it’s something I love, too. But maybe I missed something in how I approached it. AITA for signing up for a marathon even though my friend feels like I’m stepping on her turf?
The internet did not hold back one bit.
Maezymable wrote:
NTA.
This is absolutely bizarre.
A true enthusiast of any sport wants everyone to join in...she’s an insecure AH.
OP responded:
Exactly, she’s like I can’t even do that to you with climbing because I don’t have health insurance. I’m like I would LOVE for you to get into climbing. Her world view seems warped.
dresses_212_10028 wrote:
Did you run NYC today? Congratulations! I hope I cheered for you while I was out there! As to this whole thing, obviously NTA. No one owns a sport and she’s being absurd. She can get over it: is she whining on FB for the other 49,998 people to shut up too because it’s “her thing”? It’s ridiculous.
OP responded:
No it was Chicago a couple weeks ago!
StAlvis wrote:
NTA.
"feels like I’m trying to take over something that’s special to her."
Hobbies aren't a zero-sum game.
Your personal enjoyment does not take away enjoyment from someone else.
OP responded:
Exactly, this is what I don’t understand. Why does she feel like me also running it takes anything away from her doing it? So weird.
TaniaYukanana wrote:
NTA. Spoiler - your friend doesn't actually like running, she likes getting artificial validation from others on social media. That's her thing. If she actually enjoyed running, she'd have been doing it a lot more than a week before. Traditional gym bunny saying: You will never be criticized by anyone doing more than you, only less.
battlepuppy wrote:
NTA. This is not about you and is a 100% about her. She wants people in your friend group to ooh and aaw over her accomplishments. Her accomplishments in your friend group will no longer be unique if someone else is doing it too. She desires to be the center of attention and to have her identity around running this marathon
You're showing up and saying:
Hey look this is not unique or special because I'm a second person doing it, therefore she is not unique and special. You are not actually saying this , this is what she thinks you are doing.
People who do this don't have a lot of self confidence, think little of themselves and are fragile.
A confident person would welcome you into their interest so that they could converse with you on it.
But she sees you as stealing her thunder. A confident person would be happy you are doing this and would then have conversations about running shoes or nutrition or hydration or training schedules and all that other fun jazz. This is very immature behavior, she is emotionally immature, and should find another way to regulate her self image, other than going after praise.
OP responded:
This feels very accurate and you articulated it perfectly. TY.
CluesLostHelp wrote:
NTA. Also it's so stupid that she tried to cut the course to "beat" you. All of the marathons these days (I'm assuming you ran NYC since that was today) have the chip timers so you can be tracked at all the mile markers (NYC does 13 split times). Anyone can go look up her times on the race results page and see that she's missing a bunch of times for the later splits.