Almost came here with this exact same comment. Absolutely not amount of motivation or feel good thinking about my own capabilities and willingness to 'do the damn thing' can surmount the sheer agony and pain I feel after a 2 mile run (because that's the most I can bear to stand) after years of jumping out of airplanes for a living (US Military) over 12 years.
Ever have your knee shattered to pieces and fracture a femur after having a chute partially open and hitting the ground at 6ft/sec? Lemme tell you something: it's horrifying.
You know the phrase "blinding pain"? It's a kind of pain that's so severe your vision literally blurs.
You can see things, you can make out shapes, but your brain is so focused on that pain that vision rides shotgun for a bit. It's a level of pain that can (and has) induced vomiting and loss of consciousness when I so much as step the wrong way off a curb.
Don't tell me "you can do it, just put your mind to it" when my mind doesn't even have the bandwidth to register vision.
There is NO amount of "you can do it" motivational, go-getter mentality that will convince me to push through that kind of pain. Absolutely, positively and without any hesitation on the topic at hand: N-O-N-E. Heck, I stood up once to go get a cup of coffee, turned, stepped in an awkward way and turned my knee and immediately fell over in tears.
So when someone says they can't run a marathon, maybe leave it at that-they know what they're capable of better than you do.
The motivational quotes are told to people because for every ex-paratrooper or person with naturally bad knees, there are hundreds of people with perfectly fine health that they're neglecting or abusing. Being a paratrooper is almost as uncommon as being lazy is common. People with chronic health problem just end up caught in the crossfire between lazy people telling each other to work harder.
there are hundreds of people with perfectly fine health that they're neglecting or abusing
Let's not ignore the other option (among many) which is: people in perfectly fine health who aren't particularly fond of having the ideals and opinions of the hyper-health conscious and uber-active lifestyle types projected onto them from someone who doesn't have the letters M.D. following their surname.
Running marathon is not healthy. It is abusing your body more then is healthy for it. Additionally, people with zero relevant health problems for normal life can still have conditions that prevents them to run marathon. Whether joint normally-non-conditions or hearth normally-non-conditions or I dont know what.
Also, training for marathon requires a lot of time and there is opportunity cost there. I will not blame father for spending his time with kids instead of training for marathon or what not. Nor someone who spends time educating himself rather then physically training. Or reading book, washing dishes or just having time consuming job.
The motivational quotes are told to make people feel good.
Almost came here with this exact same comment. Absolutely not amount of motivation or feel good thinking about my own capabilities and willingness to 'do the damn thing' can surmount the sheer agony and pain I feel after a 2 mile run (because that's the most I can bear to stand) after years of jumping out of airplanes for a living (US Military) over 12 years.
Ever have your knee shattered to pieces and fracture a femur after having a chute partially open and hitting the ground at 6ft/sec? Lemme tell you something: it's horrifying.
You know the phrase "blinding pain"? It's a kind of pain that's so severe your vision literally blurs.
You can see things, you can make out shapes, but your brain is so focused on that pain that vision rides shotgun for a bit. It's a level of pain that can (and has) induced vomiting and loss of consciousness when I so much as step the wrong way off a curb.
Don't tell me "you can do it, just put your mind to it" when my mind doesn't even have the bandwidth to register vision.
There is NO amount of "you can do it" motivational, go-getter mentality that will convince me to push through that kind of pain. Absolutely, positively and without any hesitation on the topic at hand: N-O-N-E. Heck, I stood up once to go get a cup of coffee, turned, stepped in an awkward way and turned my knee and immediately fell over in tears.
So when someone says they can't run a marathon, maybe leave it at that-they know what they're capable of better than you do.