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 This man is running for good reason: A biker gang is bearing down on him, vowing to punish him severely. |
Running makes sense...if
savages are chasing you
of TheColumnists.com
One would think
that after living on this planet for 70 years, I and any other
(wo)man of like age should have a fundamental understanding of
the basics of life. But there’s so much that I still can’t
comprehend.
Let’s take running as an example. No matter how much I try, I can’t understand why so many people run for fun.
I believe that if God had wanted us to move from one venue on terra firma to another by running, He--or She--would not have endowed us with brains clever enough to invent the automobile. (For those at the other end of the faith spectrum, substitute Mother Nature or, to cover all the bases, Father Nature.)
In the beginning there were a couple of
good reasons to run as fast as we could:
1] To catch and kill other creatures for food. 2] To keep from
being caught and killed and becoming some other creature’s
food.
Somewhere along the way our brains figured out that we could domesticate certain other creatures, such as horses, and we could ride while they did the running for us. Fast-forward a few millennia to the steam engine--and shortly thereafter to the internal combustion engine of modern times--and we all have been empowered to ride.
So why run if you can ride?
Twenty-five years ago at age 45, I took up jogging. It was time, I felt, to try to resurrect myself into something close to what I physically resembled in my early 20s. So I started watching my diet, gave up smoking for the umpteenth time in my life, abandoned beer, and started trotting around the track at a local school.
It was a painful experience. Five months into it I had a slipped disc, the doc told me. The subsequent therapy, however, was worth the misery: pelvic traction, massage, ice and heat therapy, and ultrasound treatments--all administered by a therapist. I didn’t have to do anything but lie on a table. None of that stretching stuff that commandeers one’s limbs into positions that they haven’t been diverted to for years. My lower back hadn’t felt that good in years.
That was my kind of therapy!
The doc said I should have been running instead of jogging. But damned if I could figure out the difference, except running is jogging at a much faster gait. Frankly, I wasn’t about to try to speed up to a canter and maybe eventually to a gallop. That would be like a baby skipping the crawling part before it started walking.
I rationalized that God--or Nature--really hadn’t meant for me run because I have had a driver’s license since 16.
To find out why people run for fun, I called upon a 1954 Santa Cruz High School (Calif.) classmate of mine, Terry Simerly, a retired TV news editor who lives in Lakewood, Colo. I wanted him to explain why he started running our local Wharf-to-Wharf race at about age 50 in 1986.
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The Wharf-to-Wharf race--billed as “the best little road race in California”--started in 1973 and covers six miles from the Wharf in Santa Cruz to the Wharf in Capitola, where I live and Terry maintains a vacation place. It’s held on the fourth Sunday of every July and is the single biggest sporting event in our county. Entries are limited to 15,000 contestants, and it’s sold out months in advance.
Terry, who never ran for our high school’s track team, said he had also taken up running at about age 45 because “I had put on a lot of weight after I had stopped smoking a year earlier, and one morning I couldn’t put on the largest pair of jeans in my closet.”
By the time the ’86 Wharf race had come around, Terry said, “I decided to participate because I was in good shape and thought it would be a fun training run, which it was.”
Note the phrase, “fun training run.” That’s still the part I don’t understand.
“My best finish,” Terry continued, “was in 1987, and I think I ran it in something like :43.20. I did a lot of running prior to my first Wharf race and ran a number of 5K and 10K races in Colorado.”
Why, Terry, why?
“I enjoyed running,” he replied.
His response still left me shaking my head. Then came the part that I did understand.
Although his last Wharf race was in 1993, Terry continued to run another couple of years until “I finally gave up running because of boredom.”
Thanks to Terry, I now understand why I don’t like to run. It’s not the pain or the exhaustion. It’s the boredom. (That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.)
Every day as I take my daily 2-1/2-mile walk, joggers, including young mothers pushing baby strollers, scamper past me and serious runners whiz by me. My favorite, though, is a fellow who appears to be in his mid-50s who “jolks” by me--my word for whatever speed comes between jogging and walking. He’s always sucking away on a lighted stogie as he huffs and puffs past me.
That’s my kind of runner.
FYI: The best movie about running is not 1981’s “Chariots of Fire,” which won the Oscar as Best Picture. The best movie about running is 1966’s “The Naked Prey,” starring Cornel Wilde, followed by 1939’s “Drums Along The Mohawk,” starring Henry Fonda. They show what running is really all about--staying alive.
©2006 by Len Klempnauer. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. The photo of Terry Simerly is courtesy of Mr. Simerly. This column first posted Sept. 4, 2006.
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