Feb 27, 2008 What We Hate about Running By Doug Kurtis :: Views- 1097

As someone whose life is often centered on running I sometimes feel self conscious when comparing it to other major professional sports. It becomes almost an obsession to say positive things about the nuances of running. But then again there are things that I hate about running too.

I hate the struggle to plan one’s day around running. When do I run? I’m not a morning person and I need a few hours to digest my food before running. So my first thoughts focus on planning my run based on when I eat. In winter, I hate running in the dark so my goal is to get out the door before 4:30 pm., which means I can’t delay eating lunch.

Otherwise, I need to hop on our treadmill to run. People ask me if I think running is boring. On a treadmill it is, unless I have a good movie to watch. Great music doesn’t offer enough distraction to overcome running in one place.

Many races start early in the morning, which means getting up early. It’s fine in mid-summer but I don’t understand the need to start early during the late fall or winter months. I feel bad for the volunteers too.

I hate to miss a run, a day off feels like I forgot to brush my teeth. Usually it’s not that I don’t want to run but that my calendar was just too full. Then I need to worry about adjust my belt loop another notch.

Runners hate being injured, especially when it requires a complete shutdown and physical therapy. Many just don’t know what to do with themselves and get impatient. Often coming back too fast and making the injury worse. Then there is the long hard road to regain the fitness that they lost. I hate that.

Some runners like to race every weekend. It becomes their social outlet. Still there are many things they hate about races such as: Being nervous, sometimes for days, before a major race. That nervousness contributes to the need to find a bathroom. It’s impossible to have enough porta potties at the start of a race and it’s certainly no fun waiting in line to use one.

There is nothing worse than running your best race and finding out after the race that the course wasn’t accurate. Why do so many race officials fail to certify their courses? Actually worse than inaccuracy is discovering that you’ve run off the course. It’s demoralizing. When you finally get back on the right track it just isn’t the same.

We all hate making mistakes in our races and we make tons of them. Such as: not hydrating enough, going out too fast, over dressing for the weather conditions or not having enough training behind us.
Walkers have become an integral part of today’s races. But why do some of them think it’s ok to walk five abreast, chatting away and look perturbed when runners start yelling at them to move out of the way. What happened to runner’s etiquette?

Running rarely gets televised unless it’s a major spectacle. Why do newscasters always need to throw in a little joke about their local race. Yes, we know that many people can’t even run around their block but few of us can throw a football forty yards or hit a baseball more than 300 feet, especially us old runners. I hate that.