On Running

A note: I have no expertise or background in what I'm about to write. This is all straight from my mind, and somewhat stream-of-consciousness.

My current housing arraignment has me living on some beautiful cliffs overlooking the ocean. Beyond the crowds that gather nightly to watch the sunset, I've noticed the constant stream of runners going back and forth along the cliffs, much like the running paths along Lake Michigan in Chicago on a warm May evening. I too have been lured off the couch and on to the dirt paths that wind along the top of the cliffs with their mighty views of the Pacific.

This week many of my new co-workers participated as an Ultra team in a Ragnar race from Huntington Beach down to San Diego. It's a 180 mile non-stop 6 man relay race. Each member of the team runs roughly 30 miles over the course of 30-some hours. And they each paid over $300 and each took a vacation day for the privileged. Why would they do that?

Today, while running I was thinking about running, which is usually what I think about when I run. Mostly I think about when I can stop running without feeling like a fatass (which might ruin my internet creditably). But I was also thinking about why people go running. Lot's of people run. In fact, I bet if you if you polled American people my age you would find that as many people have gone for a run in the past year as have gone to the movies. I personally find the movies much more enjoyable. But why do so many people run purely for recreation?

I guess I should make a note on the recreational aspect. I would venture that most of the runners I see are simple running for themselves as a hobby, which probably makes it a very popular hobby, despite the lack of running club memberships, which I guess makes me want to go back and re-read Bowling Alone. Many runners are just running because they want to run. Their job doesn't require them to be able to run long distances, they have no monetary gain in running. They simply run because they decide they want to run. This is especially confusing since there are very few circumstances in modern society that would require running miles at one time. Therefore I assume people run just because they have a desire to run? Where does that desire come from?

That's really what I asked myself as I struggled up a rather small and surmountable hill. As far as I'm aware running for recreation is a relatively new concept and is primarily an American (or at least western) concept. I don't think many people went running 100 years ago. Perhaps because daily life was taxing enough that after hours of chopping firewood the idea of getting physical exercise was a little unnecessary. Yes, perhaps it is an instinctual response to an ever sedentary lifestyle, much like my hamster Stinky's desire to run in his wheel all night.

But why would running be instinctual? Humans don't seem like terrific runners. We're quite slow and have poor endurance. I think that was the reason humans domesticated the horse and cattle and sled-dogs. We're not naturals at moving ourselves. Although many have heard of African tribesmen who run their hunting targets down until they die of exhaustion, so perhaps way deep down we still long for a good run, and we've only found that desire in the past 50 years?

No, no, no. There must be more. I hate running, but I still do it. My other theory is that the pleasure of running outweighs the terribleness of running. I don't run out of excitement, I run out of shame. The shame of sitting on the couch all day eating frozen food is the only motivation I have to run. Afterwards I feel slightly less ashamed of myself. So in that I think I have found something. It makes me feel like we run not out of duty or instinct, but that we run out of a desire to be productive and live everyday with the goal of doing something good and making ourselves sightly better. And somehow the good feelings that come from going on a run can somewhat outweight how awful running really is.

Seriously, I hate running almost as much as I hate blogging.