What is Running?

Running is perhaps the oldest sport in the world. It is also the simplest, in that it requires no technology or equipment to get started.Running is perhaps the oldest sport in the world. It is also the simplest, in that it requires no technology or equipment to get started. This text will serve as a guide to help facilitate the process of becoming a runner, to save the beginning runner the trouble of having to learn through hard experience many of the lessons that runners must learn to enhance their health and enjoyment of the activity. We will cover many topics: safety, health, planning a run, gear, mental skills, injuries, and preparing for an event. But in reality, the only thing you need to do to become a runner is to take those first steps, lifting that foot off the ground and taking a few strides forward, putting one foot in front of the other.

Some evolutionary biologists have advanced the idea that running – specifically, running long distances – played a fundamental role in the development of our species.  Some evolutionary biologists have advanced the idea that running – specifically, running long distances – played a fundamental role in the development of our species. We are ideally designed to run long distances due to the energetics of running, skeletal strength, stabilization, and our capacity to regulate body temperature and respiration in warm environments. (Bramble & Lieberman, 2004). These qualities may have allowed humans to engage in persistence hunting or opportunistic scavenging (Liebenberg, 2008). Persistence hunting involves tracking and pursuing larger prey, who are faster over short distance, over many hours, wearing them down to exhaustion in the heat of the day before moving in for the kill. While there are known modern tribes that engaged in this practice, and evidence that persistence hunting occurred long ago, the theory that human evolution depended upon it is a subject of debate.

IMAGE: cave painting of runners, or something similar

Go to any park and watch young kids play. You will see the joy they experience as they run and explore their environment. However, you don’t have to rely on evolutionary biology to find direct and indisputable evidence for the idea of running as fundamental to the human species. Go to any park and watch young kids play. You will see the joy they experience as they run and explore their environment. If you go to a road race, you will see the same joy in the faces of many of the participants. It may be because running is hard-wired in our genes, or it may just be that we are meant to be on the move, and modern life does not entail enough movement and physical activity. Either way, running can be characterized not only as a sport, but as a part of who we are.

History of the Sport

While humans have likely been running for as long as we’ve been around, the notion of running as sport, recreation, and intentional physical activity has a shorter history. When we think of the sport of running, the Olympics often comes to mind – it’s the one time every 4 years when the world’s attention turns to competitive running.

When we go back to the ancient Olympics in Greece, there was competitive running, but the distances were relatively short – no longer than 3 miles (Derderian, 1996). However, the ancient Greeks did utilize long distance runners to carry messages from city to city. The most famous of these messengers, Pheidippides, has become synonymous with the marathon. According to legend, he ran 24 miles from Marathon to Athens to report that the Athenian army had fended off the invading Persians, proclaiming, “rejoice, we conquer” before keeling over and dying. While this legend is likely built from a combination of historical events, it is important in illustrating the notion of long distance running, as a noble and patriotic – though dangerous – pursuit (Derderian, 1996).

Prior to the modern Olympics, the only distance running competitions of note existed in two very different milieus (Derderian, 1996). One was in collegiate track and field (amateur athletics), which originated in England and had been adopted by upper-crust east coast colleges beginning in 1876. The other was a phenomenon known as pedestrianism, which was the first known example of professional running. These events entailed very long (often multi-day) races. The races, such as a 6-day race around Madison Square Garden, were a source of entertainment for the well-to-do, who would wager and pay to observe the spectacle of the suffering participants, who largely came from impoverished backgrounds (Derderian, 1996).

The marathon in the first Olympics was akin to today’s extreme sports: the fascination with the event was due to the perceived danger of the event. When the modern Olympics were started in 1896, the marathon distance run was added as a homage to the ancient Greek tradition of long distance messengers (Derderian, 1996).The marathon in the first Olympics was akin to today’s extreme sports: the fascination with the event was due to the perceived danger of the event. Much like a soldier going into battle, the marathon runners were celebrated for their willingness to sacrifice for their country. After the first Olympic marathon, won by Greek Spiridon Louis, long distance running events began in small numbers around the world. The first Boston Marathon was run in 1897, with a grand total of 18 entrants, 15 of whom started and 10 of whom finished (Derderian, 1996).

Growth of Participation

Through most of the 1900s, running participation grew at a slow rate, and was considered by most of society to be a “fringe” activity. After all, before the advent of computers and the information age, most people still did physical labor to make their living and maintain their home. Without modern conveniences, people were more active without having to make an intentional effort to exercise. That began to slowly change, and is likely one of the factors that gave rise to the original running boom that occurred, the seeds of which were sown in the United States in Oregon, with the publication of a short pamphlet called “The Jogger’s Manual,” authored by Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman (Latham, 2015). After traveling to New Zealand to meet with coaching legend Arthur Lydiard, Bowerman helped spread the idea that jogging was a healthy activity and was not exclusively for the young and fit.

Several influential books were published in the late 1960’s and early 1970s, including Ken Cooper’s Aerobics (1968), Jim Fixx’s Complete Book of Running (1977), and George Sheehan’s Running and Being. Runner’s World magazine, which continues to this day, started in 1966. Several of the largest marathons in the world, including New York (1970) and Chicago (1977) started around this time.

Women’s participation in running also began to burgeon in the 1970’s. The passage of Title IX in 1972 set in motion a tectonic shift, in which women’s participation in sport became accepted and normalized. Title IX prohibited discrimination based on sex in educational institutions in the United States.

In running, a handful of pioneers blazed the trail for the future of women’s running. Prior to 1966, there were only a handful of documented cases of women completing a marathon, and between 1928 and 1960, women were prohibited from running distances further than 200 meters in the Olympics (previously they had run up to 800 meters) (Derderian, 1996). That changed when in 1966, when Californian Bobbi Gibb “bandited” (i.e. ran without an official number) the Boston Marathon, after being turned away from official registration because women were not allowed. She ran and completed the race, but was not an official finisher (Derderian, 1996).

The next year, at the 1967 Boston Marathon, Katherine Switzer mailed in her registration form in with only her first initial “K” and received an official number (Derderian, 1996). She started the race, running with her boyfriend, who happened to be a burly hammer thrower named Tom Miller. While Bobbi Gibb ran again without a number and without incident, Race Director Jock Semple got word that Switzer was running. In a now infamous series of photographs, he was seen attempting to pull Switzer from the course, only to be body-checked by Miller. Switzer finished, and although women were not officially allowed until 1972, she became a catalyzing advocate for women’s distance running (Derderian, 1996).

Still, it was not until 1984 that women were allowed to run further than 3,000 meters in the Olympic Games. The impressive figure of Joan Benoit blazing through the Los Angeles heat to win the first womens’ Olympic Marathon in 1984 served as strong evidence against the lingering notion that women should not run long distances.

As the sport grew, the primarily competitive emphasis of running events was replaced by the idea of mass participation.With the running boom of the 1970s and 1980s, running exploded, with a rapid growth in running events and participation numbers. As the sport grew, the primarily competitive emphasis of running events was replaced by the idea of mass participation. Fewer events are restricted to an elite or competitive population, and today’s average runner is slower and often more interested in health and fitness than finishing time. Women’s participation has continued to grow. According to Running USA’s 2019 Report, over 18 million people registered for running events in the United States in 2018, with the 5k constituting nearly half of those registrations and women constituting roughly 60% of participants (2019 Running USA U.S. Running Trends Report, n.d.).

While the United States and Western Europe saw an explosion of running before other parts of the world, today the running explosion has gone global, with major running events and growing running communities across the world (citation/sources).

Why do People Run?

So why are all of these people running, not only in the United States, but around the world? Ask 10 different runners why they run, and you are likely to get 10 different answers. However, we can identify a number of categories of reasons why people start and continue running. Running provides a number of benefits, including improved physical and mental health, feelings of enjoyment and well-being, or for some a sense of enjoyment and/or challenge. Some runners are drawn to the social component, whether that is getting out with friends or a training group, or experiencing the excitement of participation in a collective event such as a road race.

The motivations of runners may differ by groups based on age, sex, level, experience and other factors. Research on a largely male population of half-marathon and marathon participants in the late 1980’s, for example, identified the six categories of motivations, with challenge, health/fitness, and well-being appearing at the top of the list (Clough et al., 1989). A more recent study of marathon runners participating in a cause-based training program found growing connection with the cause, improved fitness and athleticism, and mutual training support to be the most important motivations (Jeffery & Butryn, 2012).

What about beginning runners, or those who run 5ks, or perhaps don’t aspire to participate in any events? A recently published article provided a list of 11 reasons to start running, paraphrased here: Improving health, weight loss, meeting new people, supporting a charity, improved cognitive function, training for a goal, improved energy, self-esteem, affordability, community, and stress relief (Luff, 2020). These are all great reasons, but from a practical perspective, what actually leads people to make that leap? An invitation from a friend or family member to go for a run, previous experience with running (through other sports or activities), and the desire to improve health through a convenient activity were all identified as catalysts for beginning to run (Goodsell et al., 2013).

Undoubtedly, a common reason for starting to run is improving physical fitness, health and associated outcomes. Because it requires little equipment, dedicated space, and can be done in a wide range of physical environments, it provides a convenient and easily accessible way to obtain increased physical activity. Indeed, a study on novice runners engaged in a 6-week beginning running program found that participants in the program effectively increased health-enhancing physical activity (Ooms et al., 2013). We will cover the myriad health benefits that may be gained through running in the next chapter.

At the end of the day, individuals have their own reasons and motivations to run. What motivates people to start running may not necessarily be the same thing that keeps people running. For example, some people start running for social reasons, but continue running in pursuit of the sense of accomplishment that they experience by pursuing their goals. Others may start running for weight loss, but continue for the mental and emotional well-being that they find through running. Further, factors such as family status may play an important role in determining why individuals keep running (Goodsell et al., 2013). At the end of the day, individuals have their own reasons and motivations to run. But if the trends of the last 50 years can tell us anything, it’s that the many reasons to get out and run are only growing stronger, as more and more people are lacing up their running shoes.

References

2019 Running USA U.S. Running Trends Report. (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2020, from https://runningusa.org/RUSA/News/2019/Running_USA_Releases_2019_U.S._Running_Trends_Report.aspx

Bramble, D. M., & Lieberman, D. E. (2004). Endurance running and the evolution of Homo. Nature, 432(7015), 345–352. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03052

Clough, P., Shepherd, J., & Maughan, R. (1989). Motives for Participation in Recreational Running. Journal of Leisure Research, 21(4), 297–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.1989.11969806

Derderian, T. (1996). Boston Marathon : the first century of the world’s premier running event. Champaign, IL : Human Kinetics.

Goodsell, T. L., Harris, B. D., & Bailey, B. W. (2013). Family Status and Motivations to Run: A Qualitative Study of Marathon Runners. Leisure Sciences, 35(4), 337–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2013.797326

Jeffery, K. A., & Butryn, T. M. (2012). The Motivations of Runners in a Cause-Based Marathon-Training Program. Journal of Sport Behavior, 35(3), 300–319. http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid&db=s3h&AN=78403557&site=ehost-live

Latham, A. (2015). The history of a habit: jogging as a palliative to sedentariness in 1960s America. Cultural Geographies, 22(1), 103–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474013491927

Liebenberg, L. (2008). The relevance of persistence hunting to human evolution. Journal of Human Evolution, 55(6), 1156–1159. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.07.004

Luff, C. (2020). Reasons to Start Running. Veryfitwell.Com. https://www.verywellfit.com/reasons-to-start-running-4022450

Ooms, L., Veenhof, C., & de Bakker, D. H. (2013). Effectiveness of Start to Run, a 6-week training program for novice runners, on increasing health-enhancing physical activity: a controlled study. BMC Public Health, 13(1), 697. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-697