[…] season, give the highest reviews of their experience and, in fact, look the happiest in those late (and painful!) miles of the marathon. These individuals have made a conscious choice to improve their own lives through a healthy, balanced exercise program, while contributing directly and significantly to their community through their fundraising efforts. That, I would argue, is a REAL runner. Heather Perry Redwood City, Calif:

Having participated in the TnT program for four years, and having become a mentor for the novice runners, [have to disagree with the image Scott Douglas presents. He fails to recognize the many, many benefits that charity running programs offer. A novice marathoner is not going to join a local running club made up of people like Scott. Talk about intimidating. However, a novice runner feels extremely comfortable amongst people who are in his league, running at a similar pace, experiencing the same new challenges as the miles increase, and so on.

The TnT program offers an extremely solid base of coaching, nutrition training, and mentoring. I have seen many runners join this program, run a successful marathon, become a mentor, set anew marathon goal, and continue to better themselves and continue to feed their love of running. Scott only mentions the very few failures in this program and does not give the complete picture. Of the four

[…] marathons I have completed, every single Team in Training runner finished the race. They leave the program feeling great about themselves and about running; most of the time they are wondering which race they’ Il sign up for next.

Which brings us to the next issue, one that Scott, with his all-consuming passion to protect the “running community,” seems to forget. TnT runs with a purpose. Each participant views his marathon as not only a personal goal but also as a symbol of what the power of love, compassion, determination, and pure guts can do to help others. This program is not about growing the “running community” and “self-directedness.” This program is about something bigger. The TnT participant runs in honor of a real person with a real life-threatening disease. It seems kind of silly to complain about the 4,000 numbers set aside for charity runners in the Marine Corps Marathon. How devastating that “real” runners might not get these numbers, when we’re talking about “non-real” runners (I’m sure they feel pretty “real” during that 26.2 miles) giving their all to run for their mother, father, sister, brother, friend, or even a complete stranger suffering from leukemia.

Lisa Clay Atlanta, Ga. TnT Chapter

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