Dig This... Jogging
In past summers of my youth, I would take a greyhound bus or hop in a friend’s mom’s minivan and go to the mountains of Vermont and go running. When describing running camp let alone telling another you paid for a week of running you slowly lose them and trying to convince them of the fun you will have running. I write this all to say, this is one of the first places I learned about the history of running.
Outside of the “two a days” of running one at 6:45 am and then another at 2:30 pm we had to attend these diet ted talks or sessions to make our team stronger during the upcoming cross country season. During one of these “ted talks” I learned about how the first woman to run the Boston marathon was chased down to stop because so many people’s minds were being blown that a woman was running (see below).
Another thing I learned was that running was actually all that new at least from the leisure standpoint. Growing up, in the greater Boston area I was not shy to seeing people on the side of the road running or having Patriots Day off (A Massachusetts-only holiday) where the Boston Marathon also happens to fall on. So to my surprise when I was told at the end of the 60s the pamphlet above started circulating and folks started to hit the pavement. Those spectating also stopped phoning the police for people suspiciously just running around.
Now as I have been typing this I have been purposely using the term running and not jogging. Because all my life I have been told “Go for a run” “Let’s go for a run” “I need to run.” This is my cross country and track-pilled brain telling me I always have to go out and really feel the pain on my road work.
However, as I get my rings around my tree I am leaning back towards the 60s and 70s early way of exercise and removing running from my vocabulary. I am no longer a runner I am a jogger. In this peleotonafaction and fitness boom, we are all working inside of its time to go against the grain.
So what is jogging and what is running? Running is you are pushing yourself for the spectators in the car and the music bumping in your cans and almost like you are racing. I need you to remove the word running from your vocabulary and start using jogging. Jogging is just you humming along the street tapping the toes of your shoes down and not breathing heavily. Really not giving a fuck about any spectators because they are spectators and not joggers at the end of the day. Hope to see you out there.