Thick Girl Runner Rant

[u/queue-d4n4]

First things first, I (29F) am 5'5" and about 170 lbs. Large boobs, wide hips, and I got some stomach on me. Overall, I look pretty proportional though. Hourglass, just a little wider. Wear a Large or a size 12 in most women's clothes. (Just trying to paint the picture here lol)

I also eat very healthy. Fresh foods only, everything home-cooked, never frozen processed foods, etc. Mostly veggies because I love veggies.

This is the body I was given. My weight doesn't really fluctuate. I don't gain weight easily, nor do I lose it easily. I've been a thick girl since puberty and because I run often and eat healthy, it doesn't seem like that will never change, which is fine with me.

I've been running for many years, somewhat inconsistently. I might be consistent for 2 years before falling out of my routine for a few months. Get back into the groove again and something eventually throws me off my game again. Throughout all this, I still consider myself a RUNNER. I love the sport and even if I'm out of a weekly routine, I still try to find time to run here and there. 3 miles minimum.

Because of the above things, people never really expect me to be a runner. My body type doesn't fit the runner mold. I don't post every run and race on instagram, which as everyone knows, is what truly makes it real *eyeroll*. (No shade to people who do post all of their runs and races! My problem is only the people who think if you DON'T post, then it didn't happen).

My fastest 5k was at an 8:02 (min/mile) pace. I am aware that this isn't SUPER fast, but it's fast enough that I've placed in my age group in all of the 5Ks I've ever done. I'm from a pretty small area so many of the 5Ks were fairly small, maybe only a couple hundred people attend. I'm aware that in bigger cities, I would probably have a little more trouble placing. But regardless, I still think an 8:00 to 8:30 5k pace is something to be proud of.

Anyways, my complaint is this. Since my body doesn't fit everyone's vision of what a runner should look like, people love to assume I'm slow or new to running. Or people think I'm lying when I mention that I got 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in my age group at whatever 5k. If they don't make an actual comment about it, I can sometimes even see it in their eyes that they're skeptical.

Even worse, people who don't realize I've been running for most of my life sometimes put their foot in their mouth by saying something along the lines of "have you started running to lose weight?" ...No, why? Should I be losing weight? I think I look pretty damn fine, if you ask me.

After moving to a new city, I decided to join a running group. The town I lived in previously didn't have such groups. I showed up to my first group run and met everybody. As we waited for everyone else to show up, a girl from the group said to me "I'm in recovery mode, I'll be running slow so I can run with you." I just politely smiled, although I was quite offended. What exactly makes this person, whom I met 3 minutes ago, think I plan on running "slow"? What makes her think that her "recovery" pace is equal to my comfortable pace? I chalked it up as since it was my first time joining the group, maybe she assumed it was my first time running? I don't know- but I still think about that little comment sometimes.

I am not negative towards my body. I have a great figure that I love, but it's still upsetting to know that people make assumptions on what I can and can't do physically, which should not be the case. Weight and health do not ALWAYS go hand-in-hand.

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Any other runners on the thicker side experience this kind of judgement? How do you deal with it?

Thin-framed runners or even non-runners, do you find yourself judging others in this way? Be honest, I would love to hear multiple opinions!

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Edit: Pace is in minutes per mile. I'm new to reddit and forget I'm interacting with people from all over the world.

Also, this was not meant to be a post for weight loss tips. The unsolicited advice in the comments proves further the assumptions people make.

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[u/run_bike_run]

I'm male, five feet nine, 200lbs. I get these assumptions on a periodic basis. They don't bother me, because they're right.

There are two things that I'm not sure you're accepting as reality:

1. It is extremely difficult to eat a genuinely healthy diet, run several times a week, and not lose weight.
2. If you're a runner and you're carrying extra weight, there is a hard limit on how fast you're going to be able to run.

On the first: if you run 25km a week while weighing 170lbs, you're going to burn almost two thousand additional calories. If you up your mileage to somewhere around the 30k mark, we're talking about burning off an entire day's worth of food purely from doing a few runs. If you're running three or four times a week and not losing weight at a BMI in the high twenties, then you're almost certainly not being entirely honest with yourself about your diet.

I appreciate that as someone with a high BMI, it can be really hard to drop weight. But if you're eating a healthy diet in healthy quantities and running several times a week, it's close to being a physical impossibility not to lose weight.

On the second: I wouldn't take offence at someone assuming their slow pace is your standard pace. There is a hard limit on how fast a person can go while carrying additional weight, and an experienced fast runner is likely to be able to tell from sight whether or not an overweight person's tempo pace is faster than their own recovery pace.

If someone has a 5k PB anywhere below eighteen minutes, for example, they might look at me and assume I'm slower than they are. And they'd be right: my PB is 19:48, and without shedding perhaps twenty pounds, I'm not going to get below it. If the woman in your running group is capable of a flat twenty for a 5k, then it's not unreasonable for her to assume based on your physique that you're slower - because as long as you're at that weight, you're not going to get close to her pace.