15 Reasons Why Running is Terrible
October 20, 2009 | Lists,Sports
Sporting Lycra and wearing a number is most commonly associated with the bikini portion of the more lecher-pleasing beauty pageants, but an event that is far less sexy and less likely to result in someone weeping for 20 years into a bowl of cake mix after being named Miss Congeniality is a marathon. Recently, traffic ground to a halt while Toronto recreated the scene of thousands of Japanese fleeing Godzilla with the city’s annual marathon.
Most of the time a marathon has positive connotations: consecutive hours of quality programming without having to give your offspring a buck to get the remote, for example. But Toronto runners’ recent scramble through the city made those of us who are only apt to run after being pulled over consider just how distasteful running really is. So, toss those Nike cross-trainers in the spin cycle before donating them to the needy and join us at a leisurely pace as we offer 15 Reasons Why Running is Terrible.
1. Everyone loves a parade, but a marathon is basically just a really lousy parade.
2. Jogging is bad for you. Gallivanting around the neighborhood sucking up car exhaust while breathing heavily is why more joggers stroke than lifelong lumps who do nothing but provide further definition to the ass groove they’ve made on their couches. That’s not us talking, it’s science.
3. Jogging is not aesthetically pleasing. A jogger’s flushed mug looks like someone who’s just eaten a salmonella-laced oyster, been on the receiving end of a Heimlich or had an orgasm, except without the benefit of the latter’s good time or post-coital Marlboro.
4. Jogging is basketball minus the hoop, court, ball and the camaraderie. Actually, it’s the removal of any potentially enjoyable aspect of any sport that requires motion.
5. With 12,000 participants, you cannot bet on a marathon and therefore, it’s not a sport.
6. The fashion. Elastic waistbands are bad, but stretch Lycra pants are verboten outside the confines of a strip club with a happy hour. [Editor’s note: beware strip clubs that have a happy hour as there should be no extra need to drum up business]
7. Jogging is to sprinting what T-Ball is to baseball—perhaps not the strongest example as you break more of a sweat deciding what to tip an attractive waitress than you do playing baseball, but nonetheless—like T-ball, jogging is lazy and egalitarian. Unlike sprinting, which involves competition and athleticism, the winner of a marathon is decided by whoever doesn’t immediately require an IV drip.
8. Spandex and fanny packs. While it’s true, this ensemble could be found any given morning before a shopping mall opens, it’s endemic in jogging. Worse still is when it’s done with those ski pole things, which we believe is called “Nordic Running”, whose complex origins date back to when mainland Europeans fled raping and pillaging Vikings.
9. It’s antisocial. Marathoning is the only “sport” (since we’re employing such a lax definition of sport here, feel free to include skipping stones on a lake or wolfing down a 72-ounce steak for a prize) that is completely solitary, yet requires absolutely no skill whatsoever—this differentiates it from golf or swimming — unskilled swimming is called “drowning”.
10. If you’re going to play a game of, say, football or rugby, you can’t just swap it for a cab ride—unlike a marathon.
11. Unlike some sports in which people die while competing — auto racing and boxing, for example — a marathon is the only one that fells competitors both during and after it takes place. If you see a Formula 1 racer drop dead after he’s uncorked the bubbly, it’s because he’s been shot.
12. A marathon is the only sport where the participants outnumber the spectators. If a mass of thousands of people is running in any particular direction, there better be a tsunami.
13. Jogging is always done at creepy hours. There is no conceivable reason to forgo an hour’s sleep to get up at the crack of dawn and roam the streets unless you’re a particularly gung-ho pervert, postal worker or hobo. Jogging in the evening when the rest of society is busy camped out in front of their televisions or boozing it up is also antisocial [see 8] .
14. It upsets dogs. The quiet of more than one suburban street has been disturbed by a passing jogger hoofing by and this being noticed by every second house’s dog. The baying hounds then ruin the good sleep that sane people enjoy late Saturday mornings.
15. The so-called “Runner’s High”. Getting high normally is all about convenience, the kind that doesn’t involve testing municipal pet bylaws with an errant step. Humans have spent thousands of years perfecting the fine art of distilling spirits, brewing beer and carefully processing and cultivating things that provide a high without having to break in a pair of arch supports or venture outdoors.
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Just for the record, jogging and running are two totally different things. Those of us that actually train for races, well we run. Those who waddle along for the fitness and then give up after a month, they jog.
And I think this was supposed to be humorous, but…meh. 2 out of 5 stars for effort.
Your attempts at irony might be more successful if some element of truth could be perceived. This is a poor effort.
The author of this article has OBVIOUSLY never taken up running for more than a couple days. Every single point is disagreeable, and half of them are a matter of personal opinion. Seriously, the author is a total tool.
Wow…I’m one for being snarky when it comes to my humor, but you guys werent even that…I dont know where you’ve done your research or if you’ve even exercised a day in your life, but no physically demanding activity is pretty or asthetically pleasing…maybe you should try to be funny with information that can actually be funny instead of pulling things out of thin air…or making fun of ppl who do participate in these activities; you come across as childish and lacking in intelligence instead of being humerous
Womens beach volleyball is aesthetically pleasing
I respect the opinion that “running is terrible”. We all like/hate different things. However, it seems to me that this “attack” to running is without foundation and free.
For me, running is the most spiritual and satisfying activity that exists.
all the other comments do prove some of your points: that runners/joggers/ whatever have no sense of humor and are way to fanatic about their so-called ‘sport’. and apparently have a trekkers/trekkies debate amongst themselves.
unhealthy? everyone who knows a bit about sport knows it is as unhealthy to have to much exercise as it is to have to little. and that isn’t even taking into account a higher risk of sprained ankles or breathing in more exhaust fumes
this is pretty much retarded
This “article” is very poorly written and obviously not researched. I mean honestly? “Is upsets dogs” is a reason running is terrible, this sounds like it was written by a pre-teen who is too lazy to run and really see what running is like before posting pathetic “reasons” running is “terrible.”