I am a 22F, who has a lot of experience hiking and for the last year has been training regularly to compete in my first 31 mile ultra Marathon. 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 aswell. I suggested that "Two months would probably not be enough time to train up her joints, especially when she often gets knee paid during hikes". But she decided to sign up anyways.
As, she was now committed, I tried to help her prepare as much as possible suggesting that she comes on trial runs weekly with me. However, she only ended up coming on four short trial runs and struggled a lot throughout them. As to my knowledge she also, didn’t train her legs for knee health.
On race day, I ran with her for the first 8miles of so without issue, however at Mile 8 she stated she need to have a rest and walk. I did this with her for 15-20minutes 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. At this point I said that "I am leaving to complete this race, as I’ve been training roughly a year". I ended up finishing the race and she ended up DQ, roughly 1H and a half hours later.
Once, we met up after the race, she was complaining 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 risk of danger. Everyone is required to have GPS trackers on them and other safety equipment. It is a equipment before starting the race.
Now, Every time we meet up she makes it a point of saying how selfish I was at this point, and how much it goes against friendship values. To me, if she 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.
Was I The Asshole here