Dad ruining wife's half-marathon finish

[BlowDryRat]

Has anyone else seen this video?

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Brief synopsis: A dad stands by the half-marathon finish line with his young daughters. Crucially, he's standing in front of the finish ribbon. When he sees his wife about to win the race, he encourages the toddlers to intercept her with hugs. She has to dodge them to avoid knocking them over, finishes the race and celebrates. Dad throws up his arms in disgust at her choosing to win the race rather than stop to hug her daughters.

IMO this is the perfect example of a man trying to make his wife's achievements all about him, then blaming her for his ineptitude and her wanting to celebrate her own achievement. A mother is an individual in her own right.

I feel the same way about men who propose to their partners when they've won a race/accepted an award/ celebrating their graduation.

YABU - he's an amazing dad and the mum let her kids down by selfishly taking the win.

YANBU - he's a dick.

I’ve seen it loads where runners finish the last bit with the kids
others have said it was arranged so if he’s been stood there with young kids all geared up to run the last bit with the mum then she ignored them then I’d be pissed off
but if course that clears him of being a twat so no one with be interested in that

just seems a very unusual thing to do if not pre arranged

Have you? Because every race I've run families aren't allowed before the end. It's all closed off. Fun runs maybe but not actual races.

Yes

Absolutely dick move. Would have been so powerful for those little girls to be standing with their Dad cheering watching their Mam cross the finish line and celebrating like a champ.

Reminds me of the guy who interrupted his girlfriend's graduation to propose. Total narc.

DH and I have done far too many races of various varieties. There is always a game plan for the finish. Hid last 50 mile race we all ran across the finish together (him, me, 3yo and 5yo) and it made for some fantastic photos.Some bigger races (Ironman is definitely one) will DNF you for disrupting the course so that’s a no go. I’m generally too fucked at the end of a long one to be handed the kids!

Anyway, what I’m saying is I understand why he was there but don’t understand why it hadn’t been discussed/agreed in advance!

This obviously isn't her first race, and this isn't a safe or normal thing to do. Which makes me think, is it his first race showing up to support her?

do you see the dad annoyed?

It depends.

The big marathons (London, Boston, Berlin etc.) it’s definitely not allowed. Local trail races and the kind of grass roots road stuff it tends to be fine as it’s not as busy.
Ironman definitely ban it (apart from Lanzarote which is a law unto itself IIRC). Challenge allow and encourage it. As do Outlaw.

I wouldn’t say it’s ’fun runs’ vs. ‘Proper races’.

i cant see him throw his hands up in disgust?

And the wife who's idea it was to jog to the finish line with the kids if this is what happened? No criticism at all for her role in it? just all the mans faults because he's a dick, a narc, a fucking cunt, putting his children at risk etc etc?

This is the problem when there's no context. If it is true that this was a joint enterprise because she wanted to jog to the finish line with the kids but suddenly realised the runner up was catching up with her, then she's a dick too.

He’s a dick for sure. He’s throwing his arm up at the stewards by the looks of it though

I always hate the big public proposals after Olympic wins or whatever. It has an air of the man saying ; 'You have achieved the biggest thing in your life- so now I think you are worthy of a proposal'.

In that case, then you would make sure that your children were somewhere safe, either behind the barriers or after the finish line, spectating and supporting you, not on the course with the potential to trip and to be tripped over other runners.

Whatever the relationship or arrangement, he is an idiot for letting the kids in the way of the runners. Unsafe for all. It looks like the stewards are telling him off at the end and he’s throwing his arms about in response to that.

Women, and especially mothers, just can’t be allowed to have things for themselves. 🙄

If this is true it does throw a different light on it.

And it wouldn’t have been a good idea of either of them to think this was ok.

Even if there was a prior arrangement for her to jog to the finish line with the kids, you can see there is absolutely no trace of 'Yes! She won, I'm so proud' from him.

The man is a tool. At best he's clueless, but likely he has form for this sort of thing, intentional or not.

Even if it was prearranged still seems a bit daft with another runner & a motorcycle there!

I run trails and hills and I’d be really pissed off if someone let their kids onto the finishing stretch. That’s when people are often sprinting for the finish. It’s not safe and not fair on racers.

You don’t have barricades due to the terrain. It doesn’t mean it’s ok for families to invade the course!

Ah give the bloke a chance. He probably agreed to help her out by childmining his kids for her for a couple of hours but what with the registration etc it was already 2hrs and 1 minute.

@DonnaBanana

so what would you have done if you were her then?

stop running and pick them up or something?

yeah right, I don’t believe you!

NO ONE would do that in her shoes , NO ONE!

My H is autistic and if I told him to do this he would do it, regardless of whether the circumstances on the day indicated it was now a bad idea. Because he’s quite black and white in his thinking.

He would also then be pissed off if I swerved the kids, because he would interpret that as a criticism of him, which would feel very unfair to him as he had done the thing I told him too, and probably put a lot of effort into keeping the kids by the finish line for a long time, where it probably wasn’t easy to keep them entertained and compliant.

We don’t know these people. My first thought were ‘misogynistic dick’, but the pp that this was prearranged has made me think there is at least room for doubt.

Depends on the race director and set up
though, doesn’t it.

The kind of races DH is doing there is often literal minutes between runners at the front of the field. At his last 50
miles we didn’t see another person for 10 minutes so definitely not an issue!

If their plan was for the DC to wait before the finish line and jog with her, that was a shit plan!

but why would she have agreed to that - it seems unlikely that she proposed the idea herself, and if she was seriously in line to win, she is unlikely to have wanted to risk that. This also sounds like something she was shoe-horned into agreeing to, by a husband who seems unable to allow her a little glory without trying to force her back to involving the kids

Disagree @RampantKrampus Even in races with long gaps between finishers, the order of finish is uncertain so people on the course will be in the line of and need to be dodged by other finishers. Annoying at best.