I hate running, it’s boring, and I always end up really sore with blistered feet. On the other hand, I LOVE riding a bike, or swimming. I can go a hell of a lot faster on a bike*, and on longer trails. Swimming – I must have been a fish in a previous life. I love to swim.
*Plus nothing beats coasting down a long hill, just like when you were a kid.
I’m pretty sure running was invented in the 1970s or thereabouts.
My perspective is: either find someone to run with who doesn’t need to be cajoled into it, or learn to enjoy solo runs. Good gracious.
I like running just fine—for about a block or so. Then my body tells me, “Okay, that’s enough of that. Let’s walk the rest of the way.”
I’ve enjoyed solo runs for over 10 years. I’m just trying to share the love.
I like running. I’m well-suited to it physically, look just like an Olympic distance runner, and I spend my childhood running around all the time for no reason.
However I’ve never been a runner. I run to get places, or as part of fun activities, and I like to jog with dogs, and in the woods, and I’ll do about 5k round my neighborhood every once in a while for fun. But I have no desire to compete with anyone, or push myself to the physical limit to improve my time.
I was heavy all through childhood and high-school. When I got out of school, I dropped 50 pounds in a year due to a few things: work, the introduction of Nutrasweet, and changing habits. I liked not being heavy, and when I started putting on a little weight again, I started walking.
I lived on top of a large hill: the tallest place in my small-town, in an apartment building. It would’ve been a helluva view anywhere else, but mostly what we saw were high-tension lines, highways and rusty creeks. I started out walking twice a week, going up and down the three roads that were within a block of my building. I learned more and sought to keep my heart-rate in the ‘target zone’ for aerobic exercise. As time went on, it took more to do that, so I started jogging. I took to ending my outings with a sprint up six stories to my apartment, then lying there exhausted in front of the fan for [del]five[/del] [del] ten[/del] fifteen minutes.
Winter was long, cold, and snowy in my area, so I’d have long breaks in this routine, though on occasion I had to exert myself walking to work in knee-deep snow, etc. After a couple years of this, I noticed I was handling the hills really well, so at the end of one of my outings, I sprinted up and down the longest road up the hill three times before I had to stop. As a fat kid, I couldn’t have imagined doing that. I smiled and wheezed all the way home.
I took to running after that. Once when I couldn’t get a ride home from work, I decided to run home after my shift. It was just a couple miles, but it was new territory for me, this running thing. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long: winter set in soon after, and I got a wicked sprain the following spring. That, plus school, work, and a girlfriend with a child conspired to lure me away. Decades later, my knees are shot, amongst other things, but this fat kid still remembers when he could run. How strangely freeing it was.
I’ve never liked running. Despite having to do it in high school gym class more times than should have been allowed under the law, I never got to like it. I was lousy at it, and it hurt.
Doesn’t mean I don’t like exercising–I enjoy golf, ice skating, riding my bicycle through the local parks, and walking. But I despise running.
:dubious:
Good lord. It’s nothing like that. WTF. “I hate exercising” =/ “I wish I was completely immobilized”.
Well, why wouldn’t you want to exercise? Other than for the discomfort you feel during the exercise itself and risk of injury, it’s nothing but beneficial. Plus, those two dangers can largely be avoided simply by taking it slow and pacing yourself.
The fact of the matter is exercise will keep your body stronger, longer. Eventually, one day we will all get old and feeble to the point where we can no longer function on our own. Exercise will help help stave off that unfortunate certainty. Furthermore, it keeps you healthy from other debilitating ailments that come with aging.
So you essentially just don’t get why everyone doesn’t love the same things you love?
I feel that this question…
(by “exercise” I’m going to assume you meant “running”) is fairly adequately answered by your next sentence…
OK, to be fair you do go on to say…
Well, yes. I myself do modify my running speed and pace using a technique I like to call “walking” 
Less facetiously; although I can understand those who do like to run, I prefer a good 8-10 mile walk most weekends, taking in some steep gradients wherever I can and carrying extra weight in the form of food/water/camera/binoculars etc. It’s fairly good cardio exercise (although obviously not as good as running) and I get to enjoy the view.
Coupled with a low-impact home workout twice a week and I’m happy that my exercise needs are well met.
Thank you! My sentiments exactly. I truly HATE running. I like the elliptical, aerobics classes, and swimming, bur I would sooner walk 12 miles than run one. Seriously
So your motivation technique is to tell me I’m not as worthy a person as you because you enjoy running and I don’t? :dubious:
Yes, and these factors explain why many of us who really think running kinda sucks nevertheless do run. It does have a lot of plusses for the rest of your life.
Nevertheless, the running itself? Yep, still sucks.
I have always hated running for the sake of running. At one stage in my late teens I was playing rugby union for my school during the week, club rugby on Saturday morning, soccer on Saturday afternoon and rugby league on Sunday. I trained during the week for 3 of them and I didn’t mind hours of playing the game or running drills to practice moves but I hated being asked to run laps. What a complete waste of time.
I too have always disliked running for the sake of running. Running to reach 1st base? No problem. Running while dribbling a ball down court? No problem. Running to tackle the guy with the ball? No problem. Running for the sake of building my endurance when I was on the wrestling team? Boring.
Strangely enough I love to hike though.
No. I’m with that too. I love going for an aimless walk in the warming sunshine or even the bracing cold but running is just a way of adding pain to the experience.
I have disliked running since I was a child. We had to do cross-country for school, and I completely loathed it. Then we’d do athletics, and I hated every second of it. Then we had to do various sports that involved running, like softball, and I was miserable.
I love walking, and do it a lot, and though uphill climbs suck (say no to mountaineering), walking on relatively flat ground for a few hours at a time is, I reckon, plenty of exercise to do me some good.