Running

sorry that sounded more outraged than I intended.

It's hard sometimes for others to understand why we tend to be more overt in our support/celebrations than most running groups without knowing a lot more about what goes on behind the scenes and what a lot of our members have gone through to get to the point where they are running a marathon/ultra-marathon in the first place for any number of economical, social, gender, racial, health issues. We go just as mental for our 6h marathoner as we did the guy running a 2h48m because our whole deal is the running is not really the important part, it's just the common thread that creates the social group we are all part of.

Also generally I think a lot of traditional running clubs memberships tend to skew to the older runner, whereas these groups are full of motivated young people so naturally the enthusiasm and exuberance is going to be higher in everything they do anyways.

and personally I can't stand the masses of miserable old gits you get at races who act like being there is the worst thing in the world and sneer if anyone so much as looks at them.

as @TW calls them 'mass-start participation events' are all about running a course with thousands of other people, with people standing on the sides cheering you on, if you're not going to enjoy that aspect of it why are you even doing it?

for every complaint we get from a club runner who thinks we're ruining the blessed traditions of 'their' sport, the number of people who get in touch with us after races we've been cheering at to thank us for the support is overwhelming as we don't just go to cheer for our mates then fuck off we stay until the last people come through and we support every one of them. even if we're out there cheering on our own with our mum.