This weekend I ran a trail race. Participating in the 10K race was a 6-year-old girl and in the 100 mile race was a 12-year-old boy. (They’re siblings.) Both kids finished their race distance. Kudos to them.

Regardless of your thoughts on whether young kids should do those types of distances on very technical trails, I’m not trying to open that can of worms. What I am going to talk about is how much disrespect people seem to have for one another in regard to those opinions.

There are people who are awestruck over the accomplishments, there are people who are disgusted the parents/race director allowed the kids to do the races. And they’ve taken those opinions onto social media and started entire threads about what they think/feel; many have trouble even being civil. At the heart of the matter are still little kids who could potentially see online discussions where people are insulting people close to them. That is what I feel is wrong.

I am also upset with how many people are throwing around the term hypocrite in regard to the situation. One race director doesn’t allow kids in races, another does. Someone condemns one of those race directors for their decisions, then defends the other. The trouble is defending the one who sides with your opinion by saying “It’s their business, so they should get to run it how they feel best.” when you are deriding the other for that same practice is… hypocritical.

Since the race in question took place here in Nevada, by a Las Vegas based race management company, I’ve seen a lot of the angry discussions online due to my connections. And now I’m trying to avoid them, because I don’t need that negative energy. But when I saw the Post Every Day in May topic, I decided to kind of jump in a little with my two cents: Rant about something. Get up on your soapbox and tell us how you really feel. (a pet peeve, a current event, a controversial topic, something your husband or roommate or neighbor or boss does that really ticks you off)

I hope that in this post I’ve been gentle enough that nobody feels like I’ve personally attacked an individual. That wasn’t my intent. I just feel that there has been a lack of civilized discussion in regard to this (and so many other topics) online and too much personally attacking others when you don’t even know that individual. Let’s just try to pause and think before submitting comments on blogs/facebook/twitter, alright?