The Chicago Marathon happened recently and in a viral post a young woman who finished the race with a (respectable) four-thirty something was blasted in her comments for taking walk breaks during the race. The commenters told her (apparently) that her race didn’t count because she didn’t run the whole thing.

Let me be perfectly clear to those commenters: stop being fucking gatekeepers.

Seriously.

That’s just poor sportsmanship, be you a runner or a spectator, elite or the last fucking person across the line. The rules are set by the race, not by a handful of people who draw an imaginary line—close a gate—at some arbitrary point that they alone have passed.

I take walk breaks, and fuck you if you think that means I’m not running.

Am I going to win a race? Hell, no. Not like that. And every ableist, elitist, rule-making asshole who crosses ahead of me can remind me that I’ll never place that way. But to suggest that an athlete who traverses the distance of their own motivation and power is lesser for their method? They’ve missed the point.

Look, I get it. We all internalize our measures of self worth and personal achievement. We make standards. We lay down goals. We invent rules for how we expect ourselves to perform. 

But when those creep outside our own heads and become adjudications upon the participation of others? That’s my pet peeve. 

The stories we bring to this sport are individual and complex. Everyone comes with a unique backstory and often that backstory is filled with adversity and challenges, obstacles that have needed to be overcome for them to be standing there in a pair of trainers and getting ready to even just try running.

I’ve been online too much lately, I admit. But the vibe on social media while it can often be fun and positive, has a dark side of both overt and covert gatekeeping: setting rules and expectations about who is worthy to be on the trails, how participation should measure up, and what “counts” in the sport.

But let’s be clear. All of this is just made up. Everything. It’s fuzzy and pretend and it’s this thing we do and then play like there are immutable orders writ in blood and stone about how things are to be done.  But really? We’re all just making this up… and it’s supposed to be recreation, participatory, open, and for anyone and everyone.

If you’re online or in person and you meet another runner it’s not your job to check credentials and bounce the gate. It’s your job to build the community and hold the door open for those coming up behind.