Against Running

Can we please get over the fad of jogging

On April 27th, 50,000 Lululemon-clad endurance athletes, hobbyist joggers and amped-up city boys will set off from Greenwich Park, London, located at Prime Meridian, meaning 0 degrees GMT. The runners will loop around Woolwich, push off through Bermondsey, a final (larger) loop via Canary Wharf, before hugging the river westbound, finishing up at Buckingham Palace. The 26-mile route will shut down around half the city, and any person who can truly call themselves 'a Londoner' will have either left or confined themselves to the walkable radius of their homes. It's a big event.

50,000 represents significantly less of the overall applicants for the race, a 'record-breaking 840,318', and significantly less still than the 6.2 million British citizens who declare themselves 'active runners'. Millennials are the most enthusiastic adopters of this trend with 62% running weekly, proportionately outweighing the boomers 4.5 to one. Even accounting for ceramic hips, it's a big difference.

You might disagree with the labelling of running as a trend. After all, the ancient Greeks ran, and while it's true running was a staple for soldiers and messengers, it wasn't a mainstream pastime. In Seneca's Letters of a Stoic, the orator and capitalist writes, "It is indeed foolish, my dear Lucilius, and very unsuitable for a cultivated man, to work hard over developing the muscles and broadening the shoulders and strengthening the lungs". The ancient Greeks liked a balanced life. Today, Richard Branson, who probably fits the bill of most resembling Seneca's philosophical and capitalist tendencies, regularly completes 10ks, and he's 74.

No, running is definitely a trend, and one on the up. Macro stats aside, this author has made 3 separate (3× last year's) donations to friends running the 2025 London Marathon. The cost is painful, but less so than the hours lost viewing the stravial-orange veins of endurance, that so plague my Instagram feed. Clearly, I'm not a runner. By that I mean I have run, I can run, but for some reason, the habit of running has never stayed with me.

For those of us who don't label ourselves as runners the phenomenon of its popularity is intriguing. The Reddit post "Why is everyone running marathons?", is representative of the curiosity. "Can someone please explain the trend of people in their late 20s and early 30s signing up for long-distance running events. It seems like everyone I speak to in that age bracket has a run coming up…" Answers range from 'non-hyphenated_' (an impressive 106k comment karma), who says it's not as big as social media makes out. 'Cuccir' (a less-but-still-impressive 62k comment karma) says, "It's a sport which can be done flexibly around work and parenting, compared to team sports which fit better around the more flexible timetable of youth." Maybe these are partial answers, but I think there is something else, something that couldn't or wouldn't be spoken on a subreddit. Something that goes deeper than the act of running itself. There is something about running that is profoundly sad.

It would be hard to make the case that running is an inherently enjoyable activity, at least if the contortions occupying the face of runners are to be believed. Runners, and especially runners in urban areas of England, seem to sync up brow, lips into a universal type of grimace. It's the type of grimace I may pull on the throne on a languid Saturday, expunging last night's gluttony of beige beer and food. Of course, runners would be quick to quip that while the act of running itself may not be particularly enjoyable, that running is an endorphin factory. Running demands glucose, the metabolising of which sends, via the hypothalamus, a signal to the pituitary gland. Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) is released, massaging a different gland (adrenal). To cope with this the adrenal gland releases cortisol. Cortisol is what we call the stress hormone and after being bombarded with this for 20 minutes or so a runner's body decides enough is enough and a countermeasure is needed. β-endorphins are released, essentially nature's fentanyl. Hence the term 'runner's high'. This endorphin factory is not unique to running, indeed any physical activity that persists for longer than 1,200 seconds should do it, and the beauty of other activities such as dancing, martial arts, bouldering or hobby-horsing, is that the activity itself, the focus on the art, provides distraction from the mundanity and pain.

To this observation, there is another pre-programmed rebuttal. 'Running is meditative, the whole point is to focus on nothing but your body, breathing, and the tarmac beneath your feet.' Probably the pioneer of running-as-meditation is Haruki Murakami. His book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is possibly the most convincing argument to pick up the hobby. Murakami is a great writer. And this introspective ode to solitude is a particularly convincing and well-written piece of running propaganda. It's a piece of propaganda I may believe, only if every other aspect of my experience observing running didn't tell me otherwise. The primary piece of evidence that dispels the running-as-meditation trope is the highly buffed pair of injection-moulded, bright white pieces of polymer adorning nearly every runner's ears. The prevalence of AirPods in runners is perhaps not evidence enough to cross out the meditative powers of running. The sage Murakami himself says music can be a tool that helps unlock the runner's trance. But I have suspicions. A short survey of my (admittedly city boy) circle of running friends reveals what I knew to be true. It's not the energetic pounding of high hats and snares, but the soporific tones of the podcaster or audiobook narrator that accompanies the jogger. No sin here, in my brief running career I sought relief from the monotony of grey concrete and the sharp pang of 2-hydroxypropanoic (lactic) acid. I found it in business podcasts. This was also efficient. Efficient, it's a word that gets us closer the dark heart of running's sadness, but we're not quite there yet.

Because running is efficient. But it's an efficiency that goes beyond the fits-everywhere, do-anytime, needs-no-equipment, tropes of running. Running is efficient in a deeper way. It's efficient in the way that a Midlands assembly line of automotive pipes is efficient. Running requires nothing from you, only a commitment of time. You can improve at running – by doing nothing more than waking up and doing the thing. While, of course, doing the thing is a pre-requisite success in other sports, it's only in running where it's the only thing[1]. As an example, yours truly took up jiu-jitsu a number of years ago, with some vague idea that his top-end-of-the-bell-curve strength, and contact sports background may make him a good candidate. Within weeks he was getting contorted by the chicken-necked and wiry members of his starting class. The reason was not that these kids were spending more time on the mats, it's that they were spending enormous time off the mats. Watching instructionals, visualising moves, doing things to train their subconscious to execute on the thing. Not so for me, who possessed an inability to think about sport unless my bare feet were literally touching the sweat-pooled vinyl of the mats. Had I been a runner this severance of mind would have caused no issue. There is nothing you can do outside of running that will make you a better runner. Efficient.

And the efficiency extends. Take a walk around Victoria Park, pick any Saturday, 10 am-ish, and you will be guaranteed to see joggers. This is not a new phenomenon. What is new, is the coalescing of the single jogger, into a squadron, sometimes 30 or more. Nearly always accompanied by, the Sonos-carrying-Dualipa playing, drummer of the corps. There are over 200 running clubs in London, and it's an open secret that these groups exist primarily to facilitate romance. You can see the appeal. A jog around the park, in the comfort of daylight and numbers, followed by an endorphin-bathed pint. Surely an improvement to a morning of slow decomposition, of mindless left and right swiping. To many, running clubs have become a replacement for (or at least a complement to) dating apps. r/OnlineDating again our bastion of truth. "I've been going to run clubs for like 7-8 years. Initially it was mainly older people and a few bros my age. Now, it's way different lol." I guess there's always been some element of yeah-I'm-not-interested-but-I'm-interested subterfuge in dating, and currently, running serves perfectly as that subterfuge.

The subterfuge goes beyond this. In fact, I think we are ready to appreciate the true subterfuge, the true lie at the heart of running. The promise by running, that it is something for you – an action you take to 'better yourself', an act of self-care, that will benefit your health, mood, social connections. This is running's biggest lie, for people choose to run no more than people choose to be employed, or choose to be in monogamous relationships, or choose to go to school. Running is a choice made for you by our society, a choice made not for your benefit, but for the benefit of society as a whole.

To make real this point, indulge, for a moment, that you are some omnipowerful capitalist God, tasked with architecting a hobby that would lubricate the gears of your perennial creation. You want this hobby to make people content. You want it to elicit a feeling of progress – perhaps to compensate for a life in which your subjects feel slightly trapped. You want it to be something that does not detract from work duties, in fact, it should augment them. It should not be something people obsess about. It should not be an art. It should not require any deep thought whatsoever to progress. Critically, it should cement the foundational systemic lie. The lie that simply working hard will yield you results.

In some form this God did exist. And in the 1970s, the same decade in which capitalism realised its hold as the world's dominant force, the counterculture was commodified and Nike formed one of the most valuable brands of all time. Running, as a mainstream pastime, was, quite literally, created. It was not forced upon us, great inventions never are. It was pulled by us. Pulled on its promise to help us realise our aspirations 'become better'. And to do so in an efficient way.

I turned to running for a short(ish) period. At that time, it was perhaps, the only non-work activity that I had. I could run to work and wash with numbingly cold water of the office-supplied-for-this-exact-reason showers. Sitting at my desk with a clear head, I was ready to perform. I could run after work, maximising time by upskilling with a marketing podcast. Each day, I could log my times, inarguable proof that simply putting in the hours was enough to progress. The exact narrative I was attempting to brainwash myself with. Running tied my life with a neatness I've only since experienced from the obsessive compulsive professional department store gift-wrapper. But did I ever actually enjoy it? Was it ever something I did for me? Or was it just the only healthy habit on offer that wouldn't disrupt my tightly-regimented life.

When I was released from the chains of employment, when I was, to an extent, master of my own calendar, the desire to run was released also. Running was a symptom of a life that had no time for anything else. It was something not done for its own sake, but for the small and convenient ways in which it elevated other parts of my existence.

Clearly some people love running, and would choose to run regardless. I really do not mean to sound preachy or self-helpy, or even worse tin-foil-hat-conspiracy-theory-y, but when a phenomenon is so widely-adopted, and so recently so, you have to ask the question, what is the driving force here? Do all teenagers really want to go to University? Do all science grads really yearn to work in finance? Do all couples really pine for marriage? Is running really a proactive, positive choice? Or do so many run, because of its pull to efficiently slot in to a life with no requirement other than compliance – 'Just do it'.

I suppose now is this time where I weave together the Nike slogan, with the fact Nike is a Greek God, that we started out with referencing a Greek philosopher. That we dispelled the myth that Greeks ran, I'd then tie it all together with a Greek myth, that illuminated my arguments without sounding trite. Unfortunately, I'm not blessed with the prerequisite literary zest to deliver on all that. But here's the myth anyway.

Procrustes was an inn keeper, being a dependable one, each night he'd offer the weary travellers of Southern Hellas a bed. Procrustes though, had a certain need for order. He couldn't bear the thought that his guests would not fit perfectly into their resting place. Rather than go through the costly, and impractical measure of buying inordinate quantities of beds to fit all size of weary traveller, Procrustes had a simpler solution. If a guest was too long, they would simply be relieved of the parts of the offending limbs causing the inconsistency. Out would come the butcher's knife, off would come the feet. For the short, an equally elegant solution – a rack, employed to stretch guests until the required height was reached. The lesson of Procrustes is of course, the danger of forced conformity, of fitting pre-determined moulds.

Running is sad not because it's a bad activity. It's sad because for many it's the only activity. The insidious thing about running is that it's one of these special kinds of things in life that you slip into, without second thought. It's an activity that will get you cheers from your colleagues, comments from your friends, and even an internal feeling of progress. But it's a default behaviour, and it's not going to get you anywhere apart from exactly where you are. It's the lack of sacrifice required with running that is the problem with running. It will not make you think, it will not help you change, it will simply slot right in, the perfect accompaniment to a life lived in default.