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Nike Pulls "Walkers Tolerated" Sign From Boston Store After Runners Push Back
(marathonhandbook.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2026
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The issue I have with it is that the people that are only walking are likely walking because they can't run. If they can't run due to health problems, campaigns like this could discourage them from participating at all. This could lead to those health problems worsening.
This sign is also part of a broader campaign, including a similar sign at a (?) parkrun. My understanding is that park run aims to get more people active, so the elitist messaging was entirely wrong for the audience.
Globally, most people could use more activity in their lives. This type of "walkers tolerated" messaging does nothing to help that.
Walking is a perfectly fine physical activity... just go do it then
whats the point of showing up to running event just to walk and expect a medal?
i cant cross country ski... i'm not going to show up to a cross country skiing event in snowshoes demanding a medal if i walk the course...
The difference is that walking can be part of running (Jeff Galloway run walk run, for example). Running events are also a lot more than just the big events like the Boston marathon. It's the local events, too.
🤷 Go ahead and be offended by everything I guess. It's clearly an innocent joke, I would still feel welcome to come walk personally, as would any reasonable human. If you think this is "elitist messaging" we live in different worlds.
This sort of marketing feels tongue in cheek, until you are a member of the ‘tolerated’ group, and the ‘joke’ has been said to you so many times it feels passive aggressive.
I went out with my wife and some friends for drinks last week, and the beer garden had signage that boiled down to “if you’re not drinking alcohol, why are you here?”. One bartender made a big show of getting offended when my wife asked for a soda water, or when I ordered a LLB. We had to wait for our friends to depart before we called the bartender out on his shit. He has no idea why we ordered what we wanted. I could be a recovering alcoholic. My wife could be pregnant. One of us could be the designated driver. We did not feel welcome at that place because of their ‘jokes’.
I could see a person with limited mobility, weight, or health issues in a similar boat here. If I sincerely wanted to exercise, but couldn’t, and then a company or group started making snide comments about how I wasn’t actually welcome in their group because my mobility didn’t fit their idea of exercise, I’d feel like absolute shit.
It’s just as easy to welcome people into your group than it is to disparage them for advertising.
I was a long distance runner, qualified to go to state finals even. I can never run safely in my life though, because I tore a tendon in a cross country race, and even though it's been repaired surgically if I try again it will tear again.
There are only a few safe types of shoes I can wear to reduce injury risk, one of those being a Nike shoe. Walkers tolerated as a sign always stings.
Thank you for understanding.
To be honest it's a bit of a "other people might be offended" moment than actually personally being offended. I was just trying to explain the general sentiment against the campaign.
I agree with you that it has no place at a Parkrun. There are many people who come out with no previous experience in any physical activity and feel quite insecure, even just walking. The anxiety associated with that makes it easy to misinterpret innocent humour as passive aggressiveness.