Reasons Not to Run

Reasons Not to Run

How wonderful it is to be a runner. How fabulous we feel breathing in the fresh air of a sunny Sunday morning, working our taught legs and expanding our capacious lungs, feeling fit and happy with the world. What pleasure we attain. How blessed we are to follow this path. This is why we do it and this is when we wonder why everyone else doesn’t do it too. Running makes you feel fantastic, who could not want to take it up right now? And yet I hardly know anyone who runs. In fact, almost no-one I know does. So why? If running is such an innate human capability and so ultimately pleasure-inducing, why doesn’t everyone do it? Why was it only me, a seventy year old man with a beard and a chubby Chinese woman with headphones out in the park this morning?
Reason 1: Lethargy The human body operates on momentum. Left to its own devices it will happily sit on the couch doing nothing, and to convince it into physical exertion is not an easy thing to do. At first it will resemble a stubborn old carthorse, shaking its mane and stamping its hooves at any unnecessary levels of work: ‘Why?’ it groans. ‘What are you doing? Stop it, stop it now! Let me rest – I have to rest.’ The muscles tense up and send defamatory messages to the brain. Mucus forms over the throat. Carbon dioxide builds in the stomach. Lactic acid stings the joints. It is torture. Running feels dreadful. It is not long before you sit back on the sofa, with the TV on and relaxing. ‘Fuck that,’ you think. ‘It’s not worth it.’ And you never go running again. While it may get easier the next time you do it, this first time is enough. The body is much happier to stay in its lethargic cocoon and stay there.
Reason 2: Embarrassment In your heart of hearts you know that running is good for you. You know it will make you look better, feel better, and every morning you look outside and think about doing it, but then something stops you, something says that maybe it would be better to stay inside and think about it another day. ‘I’ll look stupid,’ it says. ‘People will laugh at me.’ ‘I’ll be so slow.’ ‘My kit doesn’t fit me.’ ‘Everyone will stop and stare.’ ‘Someone I know might be there!’ Running is a very individual pursuit. This is fantastic in many ways, but is not helpful when it comes to starting in the first place. No one can tell you to run. You can’t go and have run-about with your mates. If you want to run you have to do it on your own, with only your self-consciousness for company, and we don’t tend to like things that make us feel like this. Another simple fact is that running is not particularly cool. You certainly do not look good when you are doing it and the idea of the general public eyeing your sweaty body lolloping around the park is a pretty excruciating concept to deal with alone. Essentially you are shouting to the world: ‘Look at me! Look at how unfit I am. Look how hard I need to try to work off this fat. What a pathetic hopeless loser.’ It is much better to stay indoors and not run at all.
Reason 3: Boredom It’s a hard sell to a non-runner: ‘I’m off for a run. I’m going ten times round the park for about two hours, I’m hoping the rain stops and the frost thaws out a bit.’ Why? Why on earth would anyone do this out of choice? It doesn’t matter how fit it might make you – on a Sunday morning, you are not lying on the sofa watching Hollyoaks, you are running over and over again in a circle for two hours while the rain pelts down. Why? The simple fact is that taken in its own, running is very boring. One foot after another, over and over, round and round, legs getting more tired and the road getting longer and longer. There is no ball to catch, no net to shoot into, no tackle to make – it is dull, barren and simple. To the mind of the modern man this is an unpalatable concept. We don’t like being bored. In a multimedia world we don’t have to be. If there is a TV in the room, we can turn it on. Don’t sit in silence – do something else! However, this is exactly the situation we are placing ourselves into when we run. We are choosing to be alone with our thoughts, and these thoughts are mainly concerned with how much we hate what we are doing. It doesn’t make sense, particularly when there are so many more interesting things out there. What time does Holby City start?
Reason 4: Runners are very annoying Oh God. Oh God look at them. Look at their tanned legs, their Lycra tops, the smug smiles over their chiselled faces. What are they so happy about? How can they be that pleased with themselves? No-one wants to turn into these people. Any of us who retain a shred of integrity and self-worth do not see those robots as figures to aspire to. We may not have their gorgeous bodies and great tans but at least we can talk about more than how great we are. When we go down the pub, we can have a laugh instead of sipping on lemonade, going home at ten and making everyone else feel guilty about their lives. This is a problem with sport, and with running in particular. It starts in school, when the athletes tend to be brainless jerks; moves on to university, where they are viewed as antisocial freaks; and then to adult life, where they appear far too self-content to be likeable. Footballers may be dumb, but they are popular, rugby players are loud and boorish but a great laugh down the pub, and body builders can at least be a good help in a late night dust-up. However, runners are none of these things. They are either smug and fit, or weird and socially inept, and are therefore not the kind of people you want to be with. If they were, you suspect they would not have become runners in the first place. No, running turns you into a sexless, personality-less automaton – Barbie or Ken – with a brain pumped full of endorphins and not much else, and for that reason I’ll stay in on a Sunday morning thanks very much.
So there you have it. Four damn good reasons why a considerable majority of the population chooses not to adopt the wonderful pursuit of long distance running. It’s hard, it’s shameful, it’s dull and it turns you into a risible human being. However, when you consider for running for what it truly is, you realize that none of this is true. Yes, I may not always enjoy going out for a ten mile hill session on a Sunday morning, but each time it gets easier, each time it hurts less and each time I realise that I am improving that little bit. Yes, I run laps around the park, but I am doing it for a reason - to get quicker, to make that six-minute mile pace, to sprint the whole of the big hill at the end, to win that half-marathon at the end of the month - so I can celebrate with all my friends from the club who aren’t the self-important twats I thought they might be. That is when the pain becomes worthwhile. That is when I am quite the opposite of shy and embarrassed. That is when you can enjoy a good night out, knowing that you have achieved something. Keep thinking ahead. You will always reach the end and at the end there is glory…just as long as you keep running.