"There's obviously some validity to it. But I think it also points out that you obviously can do it on your own because people have been doing it long before they had the stuff"
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Shorter is doing something athletes rarely do in public: admitting the other side has a point without surrendering the argument. “There’s obviously some validity to it” sounds like a concession, but it’s also a rhetorical seatbelt. He grants that “stuff” matters - training tech, supplements, even the era’s creeping suspicion around performance aids - while immediately re-centering the conversation on agency: you can still “do it on your own.”
The repetition of “obviously” is telling. It’s not just emphasis; it’s impatience with a culture that wants tidy causality. Fans and media love a single culprit or miracle ingredient, especially in endurance sports where results look almost supernatural. Shorter’s line pushes back against that fetish for external explanations. If people were doing it “long before they had the stuff,” then the sport can’t be reduced to gear, science, or pharmacology. The body, the mind, and the grind still count.
Context matters: Shorter is a pillar of American distance running, a sport shaped by the 1970s running boom and later haunted by doping narratives. His phrasing reads like a veteran trying to protect the meaning of performance itself. He isn’t denying modern advantages; he’s warning against moral laziness. Blame the “stuff,” praise the “stuff,” obsess over the “stuff” - any of those moves let us avoid the uncomfortable truth that endurance excellence is mostly monotonous work, sustained belief, and a willingness to suffer in public.
It’s a defense of human effort, but also a subtle accusation: if you’re desperate to credit the equipment, you might be looking for an excuse.
The repetition of “obviously” is telling. It’s not just emphasis; it’s impatience with a culture that wants tidy causality. Fans and media love a single culprit or miracle ingredient, especially in endurance sports where results look almost supernatural. Shorter’s line pushes back against that fetish for external explanations. If people were doing it “long before they had the stuff,” then the sport can’t be reduced to gear, science, or pharmacology. The body, the mind, and the grind still count.
Context matters: Shorter is a pillar of American distance running, a sport shaped by the 1970s running boom and later haunted by doping narratives. His phrasing reads like a veteran trying to protect the meaning of performance itself. He isn’t denying modern advantages; he’s warning against moral laziness. Blame the “stuff,” praise the “stuff,” obsess over the “stuff” - any of those moves let us avoid the uncomfortable truth that endurance excellence is mostly monotonous work, sustained belief, and a willingness to suffer in public.
It’s a defense of human effort, but also a subtle accusation: if you’re desperate to credit the equipment, you might be looking for an excuse.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
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