Ragen Chastain

[StrawberryCat]

Has anyone else heard about Ragen Chastain? She is a plus size woman (close to or over 300 pounds now) who calls herself an elite athlete. She is also a dancer and got kind of popular online for some of her dancing photos and videos. Her blog is called Dances With fat. I found her blog while looking up information about overweight women cycling.

Anyway, she completed one marathon last year and is now training for the IRONMAN triathlon.

I think it is admirable to see a plus size woman get out there and participate in marathons. I'm overweight and have recently started training with the hope of participating in marathons in the future. But, I'm a little worried about her going from one marathon to Ironman. Especially because she does not think she needs to lose weight in order to be an elite athlete.

I'm not trying to hate on her or anything. I was just wondering if anyone else has heard of her and what are your opinions on her? Do you think she can make it through Ironman at her current size? Do you think it is possible to go from doing your first marathon to Ironman? Because I think that would be way to rough of a transition and would require more training first.

 

[maydog]

You peaked my interest so I looked into it.

The elite athlete claim is a joke. There are a precious few elite athletes in the world, they perform at the highest levels in their discipline. Being a finisher does not qualify you, unless the event is so difficult that only a precious few can finish.

I have personally never attempted a marathon, but I figure with enough mental fortitude someone with below average physical abilities and little training could cover the distance. The same is true with a 112 mile bike ride, you can will your way through it. Doing both, however, raises the already difficult tasks an order of magnitude.

You only get to attempt the bike and run if you can complete the swim. I don't believe that this is something that an untrained individual can safely attempt.

 

[Bob_McBob]

This just came up in a search so I thought I'd register and add a couple of thoughts. There is a lot of information about Ragen available at various sources you can find for yourself without taking my word. Just search for Ragen Chastain on Google. She's a "health at every size" activist who calls herself a "trained researcher" even though she's a college dropout. She makes various outrageous claims about her history with weight loss (e.g. she gained weight eating 800 calories/day) and her elite athleticism and perfect health. She uses her misleading credentials and achievements to convince people she's an authority on obesity, that weight loss is impossible, weight has no impact on health, etc. She makes money through her blog and through speaking engagements. She's also made some truly bizarre claims in the past like saying she can read other people's thoughts and make them physically uncomfortable with the power of her mind, but that is a separate issue.

The IRONMAN thing is a total joke. She is the slowest finisher in the entire history of the Seattle Marathon at over 12 hours. She specifically chose a marathon without a fixed cutoff so she could force the volunteers to stay for an extra four hours after the 78 year old woman before her finished. She was supposed to be walking the LA Marathon in March but dropped out because they changed the cutoff rules. She's north of 300 lbs now and has no plans to lose weight before competing in the 70.3 in October. Her equipment consists of a rented men's 3XL scuba suit and an old Trek hybrid she got from a friend's deceased husband. She has a dedicated IM blog at ironfat.com where she mostly complains about triathlon equipment not being available for the morbidly obese, being unable to swim and run, etc. rather than any kind of real training updates. She's only been for a single ride on her bike because she's unable to pedal it without her knees pounding her gut with enough force to leave bruises (she wrote a blog about it). It's pretty clear she is in no state to complete a 70.3 in under six months, and she most likely paid the $40 for the full refund plan so she can drop out at the last moment. She can call herself a "future IRONMAN" until she drops out of the full IMAZ in 2016 though.

Even the whole "national dance champion" thing is a wild exaggeration. She has three "national dance championship" titles where she danced against one or two other couples at the very lowest non-competitive newbie level of an event with no entry qualification at a small regional dance circuit. She used to have a whole Livejournal chronicling how she was unable to advance past this level of competition because of her weight, but she deleted it because it doesn't suit her current agenda.

I'm not trying to be a fat shaming jerk here. I have pretty strong personal feelings about weight loss and obesity and it really bothers me she is spreading such an ignorant message. There is a whole community on Reddit devoted to this woman because she's so incredibly outspoken and makes such ridiculously over the top claims about herself to promote her HAES agenda and ego. I know she comes across as superficially inspirational if you skim her blog, but it's incredibly far from the truth.

 

[gavinfree]

Wow. If all of this information is true, then she sounds like a complete joke rather than an elite athlete or even an athlete at all. Health at every size only makes sense up to a certain size, and I think this woman is passed that size. It's not fat shaming when a person does what this woman has done, and the lies she has claimed were truths in the past. I'm not a fan.

 

[Shark425]

I think we are all a little over-concerned with weight. I know I get anxious if I pass 190 on the scales. Advertisers have made millions promoting "ideal" weight and size. Women especially seem to be targeted, with models being paraded as the way they should all look. Men are bombarded with muscle bound guys with incredible six pack abs and there are hundreds of machines and devices "guaranteed to get them that look. On the other hand I had a friend who was 6'4" and weighed 285, with a body fat of about 8%. The guy was "cut", and nobody would think he was overweight. It's a shame we've been kind of conditioned to being put in boxes telling us we SHOULD be this weight for this height and age. As for this woman, I don't know anything about her , but from what i see here, it sounds like she's been doing a self-promoting marketing job...