One hundred and two degrees here in Seattle today, we here in the Northwest just aren’t used to this kind of heat. I went for a run this morning – it was a mere ninety two at the time – along the old railroad grade near our house, and boy howdy was it nice to be out with nothing more than two shoes, a pair of shorts and a water bottle. I love running in the heat, it gives me what I call a good sweat, the kind of sweat that does what it is designed to do: evaporate and cool the body. It reminded me of just how well the human machine is designed.
I can’t even speculate as to how many times I’ve been accused by folks who neither engage in nor understand endurance sports as a zealot who doesn’t know when to say when. The underlying argument is that we humans just aren’t designed to run long distances and that I’m ruining my body. What a load of nonsense. The more I run the more I appreciate the fact that we humans are born to run.
No matter what side of the creation/evolution argument you are on (I hope you’re on the evolution side, but if you’re not that’s cool) the end result is the same: we were either created as runners or we evolved into runners. Prehistoric man didn’t saunter, he didn’t ramble, nor did he shuffle, he ran that’s how he got around, and we have the same physiology as that guy; many of us have it buried beneath a layer of fat, but it’s there none the less. Homo Sapiens have been a physical animal for about two hundred and fifty thousand years, he’s been a couch potato for about forty; I think I’ll bet on the two hundred and fifty thousand.
I suppose running isn’t for everybody, but for me I was born a runner and I’ll die a runner.
No comments:
Post a Comment