Whether its a marathon or make that half marathon (my longest) or a triathlon, I am sick and tired of being told I'm doing a "good job" by these race helpers, when I'm not. I want to stop and sit there and argue with this person who, generallly has no clue about what's going on in the race, other than waiting on the last person to come by, so he or she can leave, and, for the most of them, this is just robotically mouthing out "good job," with no analysis at all.

"Now how in the hell could you possibly see I'm doing a good job, the sun is setting, and I'm making you stay longer out here than you thought, and its hot our here, don't you hate me?"

Enough of this. My thinking is that during desperate times, you don't want to be lied to, you want to be heckled, you want the ugly truth: or you are a simpleton. What participant "gets off" or "gets a buzz" over false accolades or false compliments. Maybe some people do, but I don't get it. How does that work? "I was feeling really tired there until I was told by one of the race helpers I was doing "a good job, then I picked it up."

Man, I don't think so.

And that goes for the people near me or behind me. We need to be told, "Everybody is packing up leaving at the transition area, you need to hurry up," or something like that. We need ugly hecklers at every mile marker. There's an open niche for this, if only this nice community would stop the "good job" people and replace them with the "bad job," hecklers.

"Guess what, slowass. They are shutting down the music back at the finish line and the door prizes have all been given out, you'd better hurry." Or.

"You look like Dave Scott, without the Dave and Scott."

"Look everybody, it's number #46, John Candy, back from the dead."

I could sit here and think up 300 of these insults.

I got absolutely nothing from being told I'm doing a "good job," when I am not. I would just prefer cruel insults, but that's just me.