Why is Running Not Useless?

Throughout my life, running has given me community. Let’s start there. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), and I found a group of 5 guys that I still connect with to this day. I moved 2,000 miles away across the country to New York, and there I found an even better group of guys. Haha joking. Not better but still great guys— guys with character. I was in New York for college, and I was there to run distance. This group was probably 10+ strong— people that I consider myself connected to for the rest of my life. After 5 years of that life, with those people, I moved to Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Within a week, I had myself another group of guys. I didn’t know it at first. I thought I was going to complete this time of my life individually. After all, I am only in Fort Leonard Wood for 4 months.

Not the case. There are like-minded men who share the same goals and desires; albeit their personalities are all different. I would say this is the first time in my life that my friend group has not been distance runners, and they CHALLENGE me every day! Their conviction and engagement with their own lives has constantly made me think about and reflect on my own schema and life in general.

I’m going to be honest. Not being surrounded by runners has made it difficult for me to continue running. In fact, relative to what I was doing with running, I have stopped it altogether. I turned toward the gym and strength based exercises— every day. Why? Simply because it was easy and simply because these guys are fun to be around. We are productive in the gym; it’s not lolly gagging and hanging out, that’s just the secondary effect. I got my bench up from 95lbs to 205 lbs in less than three months. During these months, I found myself questioning my over all identity. I was a pretty decent runner, and I had potential to be more (still do). This was the one thing I was good at. I am relatively average in everything else, so in my state of crisis, I would make comments like, “We need to run more as a group” or “I think I’m gonna skip the gym and run today.” And one of my good buddies, with some of the strongest conviction known to man said something along the lines of, “Running is pointless. In life and in the Army, you only need to be able to carry load and move a maximum distance of 3 miles, and you do not need to do it quickly.” Now, I said this guy has conviction. During the conversation, borderline argument, I began to believe that was true. No one needs to run 3.1 miles 14 minutes 30 seconds unless they’re an olympian or professional. Especially at the cost of over all strength. Upon further reflection, I disagree 100%.

That is the background, and I want to share my side of the story with everybody.

My VO2 max in my prime (from Garmin and COROS data) was 75. After months of not training as rigorously as I once did it is now 67. This leads me to point one.

1. Running enhances aerobic health, VO2 max thereby increasing longevity and lowering mortality risk.
2. Running gives you community also attributed to more happiness and longer lives. Examples being run clubs, groups, college running, community at race events, help from others at race events.
   1. People respect it. Eluid Kipchoge ran a marathon in 1 hour 59 minutes. Even a non-runner can respect that.
3. Running gives you wholistic fitness. In order to be a decent runner, you need to do extra mobility, stretching, lifting, band routines, body weight exercises, recover with ice baths, recover with compression, focus on fueling (diet), and sleep. My friend who only lifts heavy weight is lacking all of that, especially in today’s environment where we are sitting for the majority of the day. This is sort of the biggest point I wanted to make. Without those extracurriculars, you’re probably getting injured more often than not. When I think back to my own training, 2/3rds of it was mobility based while the other 1/3rd was actual running.
4. The principles associated with running, and its community. Particularly discipline. I do not want to degrade other sports, but this sport pushes you to a limit. I am talking from my own experience here, so don’t get it contorted. When I go to the gym, I eat a fat meal before, and take 500 mg of caffeine and some mixture of pre-workout. You always have oxygen. You push the weight until muscular failure. It is technique driven. When I run hard, my legs burn. My lungs burn. My body isn’t getting enough oxygen and my fingers begin to tingle, not from beta-alanine, but from lack of oxygen. And I can’t eat before or take 500mgs of caffeine. It is overcoming your mind in such a profound way. The amount of times my body said this is too far, but I kept going is uncountable.

I have different reasons for being passionate about the sport, and why I love running (stories for a different day), but these are my points to the argument against endurance running— to all the meat heads. (Again, I joke.) I myself have stopped running for almost 90 days now, and I have gained 20 lbs over that time, so I myself am also becoming a “meat head.” Haha. If that hurt your pride, go out and run a few miles. 😉

Ideally, you’d be well rounded like my role model Greg Plitt. One of his videos about getting the APFT record (sit-ups, push-ups, 2mi run) really stuck out to me. That’s the type of well-roundedness and fortitude everyone needs.

Thank you to my battle buddies and friends for pushing me to my limites and helping me question reality.