Not Born to Run

I've got this thing that is making me grumpy. And, no, for once it is not one of the boys who live in my house. I don't really know why it's making me grumpy, but maybe you can help me to either get rid of that feeling or enhance it until it develops into full-blown indignation or something.  But before I start ranting, let me say that I am all for all y'alls doing whatever makes you happy.  Honestly.  I may not agree, but for the most part I also don't care.  I think I might be a little upset at feeling left out here, but that is obviously my problem and not yours.  Both girls and boys can do awesome things.  Yay everybody!  Ok, proceed.

I don't really know how to introduce it, so I'm just going to out with it: I don't understand why people's fitness goals seem to always be running goals, or some other endurance-type activity. It's entirely possible I am just hanging out with the wrong crowd, but why is everyone getting all freaked out about doing marathons and half-marathons and 5Ks and stuff?? Is it because anyone can tie on a pair of shoes and start running? I don't really buy that. There are PLENTY of ways to run "wrong" and hurt yourself.  It is just as easy to buy a set of adjustable weights and hang out in your basement for an hour three times a week.

There's this whole idea circulating out there that we as humans are somehow "born to run." I'm going to talk out of my ass here for a little while, so please feel free to ignore whatever it is I'm saying if you know that it is wrong. Or better yet, write to me and tell me what the hell I am getting mixed up. My degree is in anthropology. I focused on physical anthropology. In order to figure out why humans do the things we do NOW, it is sometimes helpful to think about the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA). I don't have a concise definition for that, and I'm on a spree here, so I'm not going to look it up. But basically it is the environment that our ancestors were living in before we changed (either physically, socially, or behaviorally) in ways that enabled us to modify our environment or ourselves. For example, humans evolved in a very warm environment--we don't normally have a thick fur coat or a heavy layer of blubber to suggest otherwise--but then as soon as we learned how to make clothing and fire and shelter, we were able to move to colder places. So WARMTH (not cold) is a condition of our EEA. This is a simplified example, I know.

Anyway, getting back to the running thing. Everything I was taught suggests that people are born to WALK. Our legs are long double pendulums (or pendula, whatever). As long as our torso balance is shifted slightly forward, walking is essentially a controlled forward fall. Our legs "re-load" themselves when we roll forward off of our front foot. That is, they swing forward without much muscular engagement to catch us just as long as we keep our toes flexed so they don't strike on the way through their arc. OK. So when you RUN, you must use a lot of extra energy to make that forward propulsion happen.

Now back to the idea of the EEA. I am not claiming to be any sort of expert, but I cannot figure out any scenario in which people would have regularly been expected to run at a long, slow, steady pace (endurance running) like, ever. Imagine a community of maybe 50-100 proto-humans out on the savannah (or wherever, if you think this may have been a skill that developed later, even though our physiology would have been basically set in Africa). Why would they have needed to jog anywhere for an hour or so instead of walking? There were certainly occasions where a good sprint would have been called for: closing in on game, avoiding predators, conflict with other human groups, etc. How about when the hunters were tracking their prey?  Mmmm, maybe.  There may be some evidence for this, although I think there is probably just as much to suggest that people could WALK to where the animals were (the animals, after all, aren;t always running while they are grazing/migrating).  But I am willing to accept this as a possibility.  I still wonder, though, if we are really "born to run" or if we are just co-opting out excellent walking skills for running.
I might also add that those of us with wider hips (that is to say, women) are less efficient at both walking and running. If we accept the idea what distance running developed out of a desire to track game, then you have to assume females almost never had any reason at all to run these long stretches of 5-, 10- or 40+ miles.  Also, since women of child-breaing age probably almost always HAD a young child attached to her, that would make running unlikely.  Let's not think about the free-range boobs for too long here.

So that was all an incredibly long-winded way of saying that I don't really buy into this idea that anyone can (or should) run at endurance levels. And yet. AND YET. So many people ARE. For hours and hours and HOURS each week. And we are all in awe of them. I am totally including myself in there, even though I think marathoners are kind of insane and I'm not really sure it's all in a good way. Could be kind of like an Everest mentality happening there--they have to do it because they can.(?)

Why are celebs like Oprah and Will Ferrell and, for crissakes, GEORGE W. BUSH devoting so much time and energy to this one activity?  (By the way, check out this Bush quote: "It's sad that I can't run longer. It's one of the saddest things about the presidency."  ...  Moving right along.)  Why does it seem to float the boats of so many people? Or has it become just a status thing? I'm not saying people shouldn't do it, although I'd be damn certain to monitor real close for repetitive motion/stress injuries.  What I'm wondering is why my facebook page is littered with people reporting their running mileages, but NO ONE is reporting how much weight they deadlifted or how many pull-ups they did that day.  Or just how fast they were able to sprint that mile, and how much faster that is than when they started.  Why is everyone so into slow-twitch stuff these days?  Am I just listening to the wrong people?

I know that part of my frustration comes from not having anyone to share my fitnessy adventures with.  I tried to give endurance training a shot by running a 10K last October.  I did it, it was fine.  But I don't feel any more proud of that than I am of my progress with strength training, and it seems like others are much more impressed by the 10K.  I don't know how strong most women are, but feel pretty good being able to do what I do.  And I wonder why more people (and especially women, I suppose) aren't interested in being able to do a one-arm push-up or a true pull-up or whatever.  It takes less time to train for these sorts of accomplishments, and I think people might really dig it if they ever tried it.  But until we hear Oprah talking about this stuff, will anyone consider it as an alternative to running?

P.S.  The baby just woke up and I need to send these thoughts out into the world as soon as possible so I can quit the internal muttering.  So sorry for the lack of editing and rambling and typos/spelling and blah blah blah.