Running is easy and fun
This is not most people's experience of running. I believe it could be. I want to persuade you that running provides a form of joy which can be accessed by most people whenever they wish. I don't think that literally everyone should go running, but I do want to share how fun and accessible it is, and break associations with effort, pain and strain.
Like many running origin stories, I started by doing a charity run with some friends. I hated the training and the event, and promised myself I'd never do it again. For over a year I was as good as my word.
What changed? I came across a new technique: taking it easy and only gently trying to improve. In the first few months I'd run comedically slowly, bouncing my feet softly off the ground as I moved forward I ran about 3km a few times a week, enjoyed it, and at the time it didn't feel life changing.
But something had changed. My motive had switched to running for the experience of it, without too strongly trying to conquer great speed or distance. There was immense joy in the movement. Once I realised how it made me feel, that became it's own motivation.
The most important thing is gentleness. Being gentle with the movements, with the desire to achieve, with how far to push oneself. If you take one thing from this article, make it a gentler approach to running!
Much of the messaging on running revolves around performance, effort and strain. About overcoming your limits and self actualising.
It's hardcore, which is fine for some people. But it's far from gentleness. Gentleness doesn't rule out going fast - sometimes speed is what you want and it can be a great source of aliveness - but often it means meandering imperfectly, and not for that long.
The hardcore mindset pervades. Friends have said they wouldn't come to Parkrun, a community 5km fun run, because they're afraid they'd be judged for being too slow. But when you've been to a few events and witnessed the complete lack of judgement, one wonders: why would anyone judge anyone else for being slow? And if they do, what's their problem? Wonderfully, I've never seen it happen. And even if slowness were a failure of character, which it absolutely isn't, it hurts nobody.
Lets assume you're ready to try running now...! You may have questions such as "should I stretch first?", and "do I need new shoes?" I won't touch these questions, except to say that if you're starting small and gentle, I don't think it matters much. I started with plimsols and no stretching, which was absolutely not ideal, and changed that after a while, but overall it was fine. There are plenty of blogs and friendly AIs ready to advise you on such things if you'd like to go to town on it.
To add an extra argument in favour of running gently. Most runners injure themselves at some point. Out of all my friends who run a fair amount, I'm the only one who hasn't done so. The thing all friend's injuries had in common? They were training hard at the time. With the caveat that I have no medical training or specialist knowledge, I believe their injuries could have been avoided through the simple means of running more gently.
So, you've got this thing available, always there for you if you want it. That offers calm, joy and health, with fairly low risk so long as you're gentle with it.
Afterthought. For me, even running fast often involves trying from a place of gentleness. I see this "gentle efforting" approach as helpful in many domains of ambition, e.g.: work, and may write a separate post on it.