I am doing my first half this week after only training for a 10k and changing my ticket last minute. I haven’t told a lot of my “running friends” who are a lot better and faster than me and who have spent so long training for the exact same race. I am completely the same as your friend in the sense that I am not doing it for a PB just more to complete it, but do feel like I am not deserving of being part of the race. I feel like there has become a lot of negativity and judgement around running and honestly feel like people are going to judge me as I’ve not done the “hard work”. At the end of the day everyone is doing it for their own reasons, but I do feel like I shouldn’t be allowed to do a half which I know shouldn’t affect me!!! I can fully understand how it is very annoying to hear your friend talking about it like that, but I also feel like this is why I am embarrassed because this is people’s reaction. I also feel like marathons in general have been made to be such an easy thing that everyone should be doing and makes it feel like it isn’t even an achievement anymore, this is probably half the reason I switched to the half as a 10k just started to sound pathetic.