Training for an ultramarathon takes time, commitment, and a whole lot of preparation.

So, what would you do if a friend joined at the last minute without proper training and started struggling during the race? Would you sacrifice and stay with her? Or would you go ahead of her and finish what you spent months preparing for?

In the following story, one runner finds herself in this scenario and opts for the latter. Here’s how it all played out.

AITA for ditching my friend in an Ultra Marathon

I am a 22F who has a lot of experience hiking, and for the last year, I have been training regularly to compete in my first 31-mile ultramarathon.

The training was 2-3x short runs per week and a trail run on most weekends.

Two Months before the race, one of my girlfriends decided she wanted to compete and push herself as well. I suggested that “Two months would probably not be enough time to train up her joints, especially when she often gets knee pain during hikes,”  but she decided to sign up anyway.

On race day, things did not go well for her friend.

As she was now committed, I tried to help her prepare as much as possible, suggesting that she come on trial runs weekly with me. However, she only ended up coming on four short trial runs and struggled a lot throughout them. To my knowledge, she also didn’t train her legs for knee health.

On race day, I ran with her for the first 8 miles or so without issue. However, at mile 8, she stated she needed to rest and walk. I did this with her for 15-20 minutes, then suggested we get back to running.

At this point, she would run for 5-10 minutes, then walk for 5, saying her knees hurt too much. So, I said, “I am leaving to complete this race, as I’ve been training for roughly a year.”

Now, her friend constantly blames her.

I finished the race, and she was DQ’d roughly 1 and a half hours later.

Once, after the race, she complained that “We were meant to do this together” and that it was wrong to ditch her when she was so exhausted and in pain.

I want to make it clear that she was in no danger. Everyone is required to have GPS trackers on them and other safety equipment. It is equipped before starting the race.

Now, every time we meet up, she makes it a point to say how selfish I was at this point, and how much it goes against friendship values. To me, if she had just trained properly, none of this would have been an issue. And she wasn’t valuing the commitment I’ve made for the last year.

AITA?

Wow! It’s easy to see both sides, but this isn’t something you should join without lots of preparation.

Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit feel about it.

This reader thinks her friend is selfish.

As this comment explains, she didn’t invite her friend.

Here’s someone who thinks it was kind of her to walk with her.

For this reader, it was about reaching her goal.

She did what she could.

Next time, her friend will know to train harder or sit it out.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.