4 Stunning Revelations An Idiot Has About Running
If you're familiar with the website Cracked, you may have seen this article on running come across last month. I read it the day it was posted, I re-read it the next day, and I've read it regularly ever since. It sums up my experience with running 100%, in every way.
It's vulgar and occasionally offensive, like nearly everything on Cracked, but it's worth reading if you're a runner, if you've ever thought of running, or if you're terrified of even trying.
In other words, read it. Because it's true.
To get a little serious on this: #4 is of particular interest to me. Do you know, I was 30 years old before I discovered that I could run? I look forward to it every day, I let myself do it when I shouldn't (like today, eep!), and I'm sincerely upset when I can't do it. I feel like a lifetime of enjoyment - and fitness - was stolen from me by a physical education system designed to test children, not improve them and help them to reach their potential.
I could have been capable of so much more. It makes me very sad to think there are still kids out there, kids like I was, who are struggling because they haven't been taught that running is easier than they think. Kids who might be going down the same road to obesity that I traveled simply because they don't understand that the single easiest exercise in the world is within their grasp.
Kids deserve better.
This was a great article! I love Cracked...I totally have an icon on my bookmarks bar :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with your last paragraph so much. I have always struggled with the mentality that you have to be in good shape to start working out...I know it's a crazy way to think but it's a really common mentality. That's a huge part of why I started doing what I do...to help people realize that fitness meets you where you are right now!
It's SO common! I think back to my time in school, and while there were things I was good at (I was lethal in dodgeball), the thorn in my side was ALWAYS running. We were expected to complete a twelve-minute mile by the end of sophomore year, and what did we do to prepare for it? ... Nothing.
ReplyDeleteWe ran a mile once or twice a month, when it was nice outside, and we called it good. There was no development, no building of endurance, nothing. I understand the reasons behind the curriculum and all, but it was a daunting task for many of us, and for me, it was a nail in the coffin of most any physical activity later in life.
Trainers like you are an inspiration, and folks like me couldn't do it without you! :) From everyone who's worked with you and hasn't said it yet, thank you!