Are you a runner? Of course you are. According to Brooks CEO Jim Weber, however, you might not be.
By now, you probably have seen Weber’s infamous interview in Bloomberg Businessweek (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-03/why-brooks-needs-runners-who-hate-to-run) in which he claimed, “Running’s not really a sport,” and implied that unless you’re a professional runner who stands a reasonable chance of breaking the tape at a major event, you’re not a “real” runner.
Around ten days later, realizing that he may have alienated his core customer base, Weber walked that back: “If you run, you’re a runner.” (http://talk.brooksrunning.com/blog/2018/01/13/run-youre-runnerself-defined-not/). He didn’t explain, however, how he concluded that running isn’t a sport. It sure as heck is.
Not only is running a sport, it is a great sport because it is both individual and collective. As individuals, we bring different commitment levels, expectations, and abilities, but we share a common experience. Because we engage in the same training principles and experience a similar “sport culture” (long runs, speed work, smoothies, cross training, plantar fasciitis, etc.) we can more fully appreciate the accomplishments at the upper tiers of the sport. I may not be as fast as Mo Farah, for example, but I am in a good position, having done some racing myself, to appreciate just how fast and how good Farah is.
Running, however, goes a step further in this respect. What other sport actually allows –– ENCOURAGES –– the amateur athlete to compete in the same event with the elites and professionals? Road runners routinely compete with elites in the same race and it is thrilling. What other sport allows participants to experience this type of connection? I can’t name any. (This is also why I am a militant opponent of the “elite start” for road races that undermines the shared cultural experience of racing, but this is a separate blog topic for another time.)
Further, Weber’s contention that there’s only one (elite) winner is horribly out of touch with US road racing. Age-group competition, to take just one example, means that there are multiple “winners” –– by this most narrow definition of winning.
And who is Weber to define what “winning” means to the individuals who put on his company’s shoes? All of the following might be your win: completing the distance; besting your PR; losing 10 lbs.; finding some new supportive friends; seeing the sunrise; sticking with your training plan. The list goes on…)
You don’t need to fill out an entry form to win. Every year, 19 million Americans participate in some type of organized road race, but millions more pursue running –– and by this I mean, propelling yourself forward intentionally, at whatever pace, keeping one foot at a time off the ground –– without ever filling out a race entry.
Real Runners
I would, however, argue that once you start propelling yourself in this fashion the potential for getting swept up in the larger culture of running is high. It starts out innocently enough with Jeff Galloway’s “Run-Walk-Run” method and before you know it, you might find yourself in several years training for a half marathon or more. (Beware those gateway drugs, kids.)
You will probably start connecting with other runners to get advice and get some support (It’s so much easier to accomplish those long runs with friends.). In a little while, you might find yourself immersed in the running culture –– you start thinking about food as fuel, you plan vacations to destination runs and scenic running locales, your work wardrobe loses significant closet space to technical t-shirts and running shoes. Running becomes a mindset, a cultural and sociological thing that changes your brain, your outlook, your way of perceiving reality. It will change your life and how you view life.
More Real Runners
How are you –– you particularly, you who are reading this –– not a runner? I simply don’t believe you. When I fit you for shoes and you say, modestly, that you don’t really run, I look at the wear patterns on your old shoes, the muscles of your calves, your calluses and hammertoes and I know that is not true. Whatever weekly mileage mark you have in your head, whatever race minimum you think you have to cross, whatever age or fitness or pace you think you have to maintain to enter the halls of the “real runner” –– let me be the first to welcome you. You are already here. There is no fitness level gauge that marks you as a runner. Claim it –– if you run or even if you aspire to move with more agility and less pain, you’re a runner.
You don’t have to have goals to be a runner. You might just lope along because you enjoy it. Even if you might be doing it and not enjoying it (please, drop by, I think we can help!), you are still a runner. If you have run –– even if you are currently not doing so because of injury, motivation, whatever –– you’re a runner. You nearly certainly experienced joy as a child by moving your body and those memories are in your brain still. Walking, rolling, shuffling, heel-striking, assisted and unassisted –– to be human is to be a runner. What a revolutionary thought! Again, that’s a blog for another time.
Even More Real Runners
Come help celebrate this aspect of our universal human experience by joining us for a run this upcoming Sunday (2/11) at 8:00 AM at Fleet Feet Albany. The weather might suck –– but who cares? Invite your friends and invite some runners who don’t yet know that they are runners. Let’s get everyone running. Did I mention there will be hot cocoa?