Sometimes it seems as though there are two kinds of runners
in the world.
I read a lot of articles about “advice for running.” Judging
by the sheer quantity of such articles, it appears that a large segment of the
population wants to “start running,” but doesn’t know where to begin. I’ve written
my own unique take on this, through various posts over the years. Before I get
to the “two kinds of runners” I’ve been thinking about, let’s quickly review my
core advice to new runners:
Advice To New Runners
Run Instead Of Jogging
One look at the definition of “jogging”
on Wikipedia should make clear why I advise people against jogging. Jogging
is like running, only at slower speeds and with worse form. You might not be
ready to run fast, but bad
form is sure to produce chronic running-related injury.
Instead of jogging, you should practice running from the
very first moment you pick up the sport. Don’t adopt the silly postures of a
jogger, just put your shoes on and go.
You probably won’t have perfect form when you start out, but at least you’ll be
on a path toward better form. Jogging, by contrast, forces you to condition
yourself to bad form. Don’t do it.
Don’t Walk/Run; Run Until You Can’t Run Anymore, Then Walk
Also, don’t run/walk. Walk/running was invented to help
people cross a finish line when it was unlikely that they had the physical
conditioning to finish the race the ordinary way. That in and of itself should
raise a red flag in your mind: If you’re not in good enough physical shape to
complete a test of running ability, then you shouldn’t take that test in the
first place!
The reason why walk/running doesn’t work is because it
teaches you how to stop when you’re tired, instead of continuing on. If you
want to run a mile, but you get tired and have to stop running every other
block, why would it make sense to develop a training
strategy in which you stop every other block? No, the key to running the
full distance is gradually increasing the distance over which you can run
without stopping.
So, instead of walk/running, I recommend simply starting
with something easy and do-able, like 3 minutes of running, and then spending
the rest of your workout walking. The next day, do 4 minutes of running, and
then walk the rest of the way. Then 5 minutes of running, then 6, and so on. In
as little as 30 days, you’ll go from nothing to being able to run a full 30-minute
workout. Much better.
Accept The Fact That Running Is About Overcoming Adversity
I can’t tell you how often people have said to me, “I wish I
could run, but I just can’t. It hurts.” If pain avoidance is of great
importance to you, then running should fall low on the list of things you
attempt. You may as well hang up your sneakers right now and go to the beach. Running
involves overcoming the urge to stop – the same urge that many call “pain.”
If you’ve never done much cardiovascular conditioning
before, then your lungs are going to burn when you first start running. As you improve,
the burning will go away right up to the point where you start running faster,
and then it will come back. Breathing hard and pushing yourself makes your
lungs burn. That’s just what it does. Your heart will pound in your chest. This
is not always a pleasant sensation. Sometimes it, too, hurts. As you become a
better runner, the pounding will lessen for the same level of activity, but as
you push yourself harder, so, too, will your heart beat harder. This is the nature
of cardiovascular exercise. Accept it.
But running also works out several muscle groups, and if you
haven’t worked those muscle groups out recently, then your muscles are going to
be sore later on. That’s because working out your muscles involves literally
tearing them down and causing your body to rebuild them in a better way.
Tearing your muscles down hurts. It just does. It burns initially, as your legs
are filled with acid, and then it aches later on as your muscles try to
recover. But this is exercise – it comes with the territory. Drink a big glass
of water and put your big-kid pants on.
And finally, in some rare cases, some people just haven’t
figured out how to put one foot in front of the other without a jarring impact
with each foot’s landing. This is a form problem, caused by that person’s erroneously
engaging in jogging as opposed to running. See above.
Two Kinds Of Runners
Now that we’ve been through a brief recap of my philosophy
toward taking on the sport of running, I’d like to discuss a pattern I seem to
have noticed among people who run.
Some runners enjoy the process of throwing themselves into a
new running challenge. For example, on one of my running routes, I get to run over
a big, long, steep downhill portion. This is a lot of fun because I get to run
very fast with minimal effort. If I run the same route in reverse, I’ll have to
run up that same hill, which is
obviously much more difficult. Some of us look at a challenge like that and
think, “That’s going to be really, really hard… THAT’S AWESOME!” Another group of us would refuse to even consider
running up a big hill unless they absolutely had to, and they’d hate doing it
every step of the way.
When I was a young runner, my friends and I used to like to
challenge each other to seemingly ridiculous running-related tasks. We’d take
our most-hated workout and encourage each other to do it twice in a row. We’d
carry each other up staircases while running. We’d make a joke of extending our
workouts 50%, 75%, 100%. When some of us would cut through corners when turning on city streets, the others would shout, “You’re
only cheating yourselves!” In short, anything that made running more difficult,
and more painful, and more of a workout was something that we took on eagerly,
with a laugh.
It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that we who did this ended
up being the faster runners; nor should it surprise you to learn that those of
us who approached running this way are still running a lot in our thirties and
haven’t put on a lot of excess weight. Those who spent their time mainly
avoiding hard work and socializing-while-jogging have ultimately not stuck with
running in the long term, and were never really good at it to begin with. One
has to wonder whether they ever even enjoyed it.
It’s tempting to say that only one of these two groups is “the
group of real runners,” but that isn’t
true. Anyone who runs is a runner. The reason I choose to delineate between the
two groups is because their disposition toward running is wildly different. When
you read HuffPo articles about walk/jogging, you’re reading an article that is
intended for people who have to plead and bargain with themselves in order to
run. They’re articles for people who have a low tolerance for pain and
adversity (at least as far as running goes), and who are not innately driven to
challenge themselves on their own.
Such HuffPo articles might be a great benefit to that group
of people, but it’s important to remember that there is another group of runners
out there. That other group is comprised of the people who enjoy making their
runs extra-long, or extra-difficult, or extra-painful simply because the
challenge appeals to them. They’re the ones who always talk about endorphins,
and about how much they love running.
So, if you’re a member of the “easy does it” group, and you’re
imagining that one day you’ll morph into the other kind of person, then my
advice to you is to adopt the strategies and proclivities of that group. If you
find you enjoy it, you’ll stick with it. But it’s equally likely that you won’t
end up being one of those crazy-runner-types, and if so, you may as well admit
that to yourself. It’ll make you happier.
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