Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Why do you run?...Why don't you run?

I get asked that question alot. A good answer is another question, "Why not?"

If you run, you are a runner. It doesn't matter how fast or how far. It doesn't matter if today is your first day or if you've been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run.

John Bingham, Runner and author

Someone was talking about how much better a runner I am than her and that I started running long before she did. My response was, “We both started running around the same time (she looked at me funny)…when we were 2 years old.” It is true, everyone started running near the same age. We just stop running at different ages. Why do we stop running? That is the question of the day.

“You ever see a kid do hot yoga and put on a knee brace? What do kids do? Kids just go. I have a five year old daughter, and when she wants to run she just [raises her arm] goes, “GO!” [leans forward and runs].”

“Somewhere between the age of 5 and 25 we go from really loving [running] to, oh shit I gotta do it.”

--Christopher McDougall



1 comment:

Dale Lister said...

Great Post Karl. Working with kids, I see that the younger ones, some of them will run just to get from point A to point B. They do it because it is fun and fast. They want to get where they are going. We adults, however are always telling them NO! Walk! Don't run! We learn that we are supposed to walk - not run! On a side note, I remember being a grade school kid,and being dropped off at Disneyland with my friends. (I lived not that far way.) We got in a lot of rides, because we did not waste our time walking between them.

Thanks also for the Scott Jurek video!