Clydesdale!?

In my quest to motivate clients to join my running group, try a running program and eventually get out there and race, I've added some fun runs to my website. We'll run together, maybe carpool, become a bit competitive through the run, encourage each other, grab a bite to eat after the run and talk about how we did. All great stuff!

Perusing the websites about upcoming races, I noticed that there is a Clydesdale category for runners over a certain weight. OK, fine. Maybe I've never been close to this category before, maybe I'm prouder about my accomplishments with running lately, but it struck me as quite unfair that I am almost heavy enough to be a "Clydesdale". Something about the term is not particularly flattering, especially for a woman. If I think about myself I use terms like strong, athletic, fit, healthy, able, powerful, etc. If someone were describing a fit woman, whether it's myself or someone else, we might like them to use terms like sexy, hot, sleek, toned. If I had to choose a term to describe myself while running I'd like to conjure up the image of Black Beauty, unique, exceptional, gorgeous, dreamy, amazing.

I object to the term Clydesdale being used to describe any woman in any capacity. For men it's one thing, maybe even something to be proud of. We women work hard, and as much as we respect the Clydesdale for the work that they do, we do not want to be compared to them in any way. I think the Black Beauty catergory would be just fine, or even Pegasus sounds better. We're feminine and want to be acknowledged as such, thank you very much, so let's think of ourselves in that way regardless of what the scale and others might tell us.

Thanks for reading!

Sarah