The runners I know who do this, do it while recovering from a specific injury. A fair number of college kids, who do not always look like runners, come in and do it as my group finishes at the pool. I always thought it looked incredibly boring, until I realized here I was swimming with my face in the water for 1.5 hours, with only maybe 5 minutes to talk, and they could chat away the whole time they were there.
I can second this. I ran while I was pregnant until almost my eight month, when I had to switch to water running. I can tell you that water running was ten times more difficult than land running, which I would have preferred to do, but my stomach obviously prevented it after a while (all that bouncing on an already-compressed bladder starts to hurt after two seconds of doing it).
And as for boring - I can think of little more boring than running up and down those lanes. It was worse than watching paint dry.
I’ve been running for years-- no knee problems that I didn’t already have before I started. Thought I’d add that in so we can turn these anecdotes into data.
Still, running can cause plenty of other injuries, and I’m fighting a lower back problem right now. Not sure if it was caused by running, but it sure gets aggravated by it. Still, I try to run on dirt trails as much as possible-- easier on the joints, and much better overall scenery.
Every form of exercise has its problems, so you just have to learn to work around them. When I used to swim a lot, I’d get terrible shoulder pain. Cycling gets my sciatica going. You name it. The only thing worse is… doing nothing!
Thanks, Scylla. I have bad knees, but never gave up running. Although they feel fairly good most days, I was convinced I it was a ticking timebomb. Maybe not after all.
I’ve not seen/heard that. What I have seen and heard at weight loss meetings, where people are nominally getting together to help each other lose weight, is that person A will mention how well his/her running is going. Person B then says s/he wishes s/he could run, but can’t because of the joint stresses, or other spurious comments.
It’s sardonically amusing to see Person B keep coming up with reasons that they can’t do any of the other exercises suggested. Lack of time (“Who will watch the kids?”) or opportunity (“I don’t have a pool.”) or safety (“I can’t bike on the roads, have you seen the drivers around here?”) all come up. And while any single reason might be legitimate, when it’s a completely predictable response to any suggestion of exercise…