According to the latest data, foot racing made a big comeback in 2023, and the trend seems to herald a robust 2024, as well. This, after several years of Covid-caused cancellations, delays and controlled race re-openings.
This reemergence of races speaks to the desire for people across the running spectrum to join like-minded adherents not just in training, but in competition, too, if only to challenge their own limitations.
Yet, despite the data, there remains a staunch belief in the non-running public that such exercise is fatuous, at best, and perhaps even ill advised.
This all leads to a question I have often asked at races through the years: what is it about running that people who don't run don't get? Because to the uninitiated, running is often summed up with "why would you? It looks horrible!"
True enough, running can turn toenails black then make them fall off. It can make muscles ache and feet blister. And, in the absence of proper lubricants, it can chafe thighs and make nipples bleed, a mostly male affliction. All which gives one pause regarding racing. "What's the entry fee for this?"
Yet runners wear such corruptions of the flesh as badges of courage, war wounds, hard-earned battle scars from having prepared for, then overcome, the myriad challenges set forth between starter's command and finishing line.
Accordingly, running's gift is obviously not in its watching, but in its doing, where one often discovers a developing self-awareness: "I didn't think I could do it. Then I did do it. What else don't I think I can do?"
Anyone who runs to the point of fitness knows that running is more than simply an exercise for our physical form. In its hold and rhythms many runners experience a mental acuity and spiritual communion unrealized while not at pace.
For many, running becomes a self-contained decompression chamber to deal with the stresses of the day, and races the beckoning light to keep them motivated.
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