I saw a sticker on a car that said, 28.7. Underneath the number it said, “I got lost partway through” or something like that.
But isn’t that confirmation bias? There are probably plenty of runners around you who don’t advertise it, therefore you don’t know they are runners.
Kind of like the argument that you can always tell when someone is wearing a toupee. How can you be sure?
I think there is only one person at my current job who knows I have run a couple of marathons, and I only told him after he talked about running.
The two runners I know best don’t have car stickers with numbers, but do have one that’s the logo of their running group. You’d never know it was a running group by looking at the logo.
As far as bragging goes, they like to show their new medals for completion of different runs.
I can kinda see people wanting to tell others that they have run a marathon (26.2), but for the life of me, I can’t understand why any one would want to boast about running a half (13.1) marathon.
Its like coming back from Everest and telling people you made it all the way up to Camp 2. Dude, like what about the summit?
Training for a marathon is a huge time suck. A half-marathon is a marathon for working people (only partly joking).
Also, a half- marathon is more of a race. The perception of a marathon is that it’s an achievement just to finish. Finishing a half is not as big a deal as finishing faster than before.
You can mess up your pacing, your pre-race prep, your race day gear, your in-race hydration/calories and still finish.
Those same things will doom a marathon even for a world-class runner.
As a complete non-runner I always feel a sense of pride for the people who have their 13.1 and 26.2 stickers. They are so proud. Go yous!
I have friends who run 5ks like they are walking to the mailbox but I think only one of my friends has done a marathon. He doesn’t have a sticker to commemorate it - he has a large tattoo 
Never seen such stickers.
Got up to running a marathon and also never did the sticker but when I transitioned into triathlons for a few years I did put on the sticker that said “USAT”, which stands for “USA Triathlon.”
Not sure why. It came with the membership you need to buy to compete, so I put it on. Only someone who did tris would know what it meant.
Why do people put on stickers that read “I love my grandcat”? Or “My other car is a bike”? Or the “fish” symbol? Or the “fish with feet” one or the “coexist” one for that matter? Or the nine inch nails sticker?
We all choose to broadcast aspects of our identity (or desired identity) in various ways, yeah some is to make connections with others who may share those aspects with us, but some is just because it is what we do. That’s not bragging; it’s just what humans do.
So what if it is bragging, why is it expected to always be humble? A triathlon is not something everyone has done, why can’t you be a little proud?
Ironman here. No stickers.
I have a friend that just completed her first half after being sedentary her whole life.
She hit her target time of 2:20 right on the button (2:19:58).
If she wanted to put a sticker on her car, she should certainly do so. Everyone has goals and everyone has limits they want to push.
…what’s your distance/PR?
New Englanders are big on their stickers for some reason as I immediately noticed when I moved here. There is the fairly common but supposedly not ironic “This car climbed Mount Washington” sticker. Really? A summer drive deserves a sticker? 1989 Toyota Corollas have made that drive.
There is also the “VT” sticker which just means that you have the means to make it out of Massachusetts, Connecticut or Rhode Island at least once to visit another state 100 or so miles away.
College and university stickers are also common as noted. The only good thing I can say about all of them is that they are an improvement from the “Baby on Board” stickers from the 80’s or obnoxious political stickers from any year. The only stickers I have on my SUV are the zombie family ones and that is only because my 10 year old bought them herself and thought they would be fun. Otherwise, there would be none.
I ran in the Ragnar Del Sol and Spartan, and don’t have a stickers for them. But, I do have T-shirts, and often get comments from other participants when I wear them. It is definitely a “tribal” thing.
It makes me uncomfortable to call attention to myself in that way. And the pride I have is always tempered by being very aware of the people who have much more to be proud about.
I finished my half Ironman realizing as I crossed that there was no way I was ever going to be able to train up to a full Ironman such as Happy Scrappy Hero Pup has done. I am proud that I have hit goals that I have set for myself but c’mon, compared to a real Ironman I have little to brag about. Plus the swimmers kicked me in the face as they swam over me! I finished my marathon under my target time … but I was still unable to keep pace with the little old man decades my senior who kept getting farther and farther ahead of me. Beating my target time was nothing that I would brag about.
I have seen 0.26 ones. Part poking fun, part self-deprecation, I think. As for me, I consciously have and always will have zero stickers on my car. If you’ve done a marathon, great, not for me but congratulations! Now can you scrape the 13.1 and 5k stickers of your Subaru?
Also a lot of people put a placard on their car that says that they drive 5-10 MPH under the speed limit consistently. It has a conifer tree on it, about 3 letters and 3 numbers, and the word “Oregon.”
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Be proud of your 70.3 finish. Just because it’s half of something else, that doesn’t mean it isn’t all of what it is. And what it is, is a lot of damn miles, and not everyone can do it. In fact, few can. And we all get smoked by old dudes. Comes with the territory. You’ve done what few can; even completing a 70.3 is a thing of which you can be rightly proud.
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If I can finish an Ironman, anyone can.
Me, too. The only sticker you’ll see on my car is the one the Jiffy Lube guy puts on my windshield to remind me when the next oil change is due. And even those I usually tear off if I remember.
But honestly, if someone completes a big goal and they want to put a frickin’ sticker on their car, so what? life is short. Enjoy your own life and don’t piss on what other people do.
IMHO, most healthy people with average bodies can work up to a half if they put in the time; it’s the second half that really separates out true runners from the rest.
But… how many average people can actually run a half? I imagine that 99% of the population cannot run 13.1 miles, or even close to it. It takes dedicated effort to train the body to go beyond a few miles, and few individuals invest the effort.
Nothing wrong with someone being proud that they put in substantial effort and met a difficult target.
There will always be people above you and below you in achievement. Even in a single event such as a half or whole marathon, there will be the time sheet, with you somewhere in the middle. Very rarely are achievements of the “better than everyone” variety.
So, I say that if someone wants to show they ran a half, let them. Not everyone wants to trumpet their achievements, but if someone has reached the goal, why not?
If I ran a marathon, I’d put it on my car, resume, and LinkedIn. Alas, my feet preclude any distance running, though I got the OK to sprint.
I drive near Boston. They are. So are the vegans and Quakers and hippies. Admittedly, the young guys in big trucks with Trump, NoBama, and NRA stickers are *more *aggressive. But driving here is on a scale of aggressive to utter fucktard asshole. Anyone too laid-back won’t ever get to their destination and risks being run into.
Yeah, I lived in Jersey for six years. Perhaps I needed those stickers as a sort of survival mechanism! At the time I moved there, I was a pretty timid driver. I hate to admit it, but dealing with that clusterfuck actually made me a better driver, because it forced me to be more decisive. The upshot is that I picked up a good dose of road rage (not tailgating, honking, flipping off road rage, but silent fuming/swearing in my car road rage.) Moving back to Michigan was also a bit of an adjustment because in Jersey you just do shit (like put on your blinker and move over, without ‘‘asking’’ permission) that pisses people in Michigan off. I actually see Michiganders as the more self-centered drivers, because in Jersey there was a sense of everyone being in this shitfest together. You wanted to get over, you got over. You wanted to merge in, you merged in. While I saw a few spectacular examples of terrible driving in Jersey, I think overall they have it figured out better.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen one or if I did, I didn’t know what it meant. Not sure how it differs from all the other things people share about themselves via bumper stickers or t-shirts or whatever. Running 13 miles seems a bit more brag worthy than the ability to procreate. Do the stick figure families annoy the OP?