Slightly OT: We're all going to die.

Hopefully, not today, but eventually, we're all going to die. It's the one thing you can't escape. You can even get out of paying taxes if you really try, but death? Sorry, you don't have a choice.

So, if you're wondering what brought on this spate of vitriol, here's the story.

Grete Waitz passed away. She won nine New York City Marathons. She had been battling cancer for the last six years and she died on Tuesday. I saw the news on About.com this morning. There were two comments, both expressing amazement that someone that young could have died. They expressed their condolences to her family and then each made a comment to the effect of, "Wow, if an athlete can die so young, why bother trying to be healthy?"

Really?

Quality of life is greater than Quantity of life. Sure, you can live to be 100, but if you struggle and suffer through the last 50 years, is that really what you want? Frankly, you can have 40 of those years if the rest of my life is relatively free from pain and disease.

Yes, I know, that's just my opinion. But after working in the Nursing Center for the last three years, I feel pretty qualified to offer it up for scrutiny. I've had enough people tell me that they wished they were dead to believe them.

I didn't know Grete Waitz. I've never even read an interview with her. But I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't say that she wished she had never started running. I imagine that she regrets that she didn't get to run more.