Is running a 'sport' for people with no sporting ability?

Not a clickbait post here but an honest question. Isn't some form of running the total base requirement for most kinds of real sport? Isn't restricting it to 'only' running an admission that all other requirements for sport, i.e. co-ordination, timing, team work, aggression, intelligence beyond the candidate? Isn't just plain 'running' just a Forest Gump initiative? I imagine a fair percentage of those reading this post pursue other more athletic pursuits but in the universe of 'runners' is it not fair to say they are not athletes or sports people but just glorified 'walkers'? No offence intended.
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Comments

  • Andy B6Andy B6 ✭✭✭
    Haha.  Yeah I am with you dude.  Runners are a bunch of boring talentless losers.

    i hate running anything more than 5k, it’s so repetitive and boring but I have to do it to keep fit enough for football.  People who spend hours running for the hell of it are weirdos and should be avoided.
  • Andy B6Andy B6 ✭✭✭
    Erm, no offence to anyone on here who happens to be a runner. 
  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    Barring serious medical issues, pretty much anyone can run. We're designed to. On top of that, running is an easy activity to get into. It doesn't cost much (at least until you get the racing bug) and can be done anywhere - all you need is a pair of trainers and the willingness to move your backside off the sofa. So of course it will be the activity most people choose when deciding they need to get fit. No need for an expensive gym membership, no need to get yourself to a pool or buy yourself a bike and dice with death on the roads, no need to get yourself to wherever your football/netball/cricket etc team trains. Running is easy to get into.

    And you are right, to a degree. You don't have to have any particular talent to run. I was the dyspraxic kid at school who couldn't catch and was always picked last or second last for team sports during PE lessons (which I hated). But I can run. And the older I got, the more I discovered that I loved running, and that it changed from something I did to lose weight and get fit to a way to push myself. As I hit my forties and then fifties, I discovered that I really loved racing. I loved the sense of achievement, the adrenaline, the spirit of community you get during a race (and yeah, I love the bling - I'm not ashamed to admit it). I love the sense of achievement I get from bettering my distances and times (even as I approach my 51st birthday, I am still notching PBs - one advantage to starting racing in my 40s is not having to agonise about how much slower I am now than in my 20s and 30s).

    But am I talented? Oh hell no. I don't have the ideal build for distance running, my stride is short and shuffly and probably don't have great lung capacity. It took me 13 half marathons to get under 2 hours and I had to work hard to achieve that. A lot of people do that on their first try, and with less training (which makes me a little salty, but hey, they are them and I am me).

    There are a lot of runners like me. There are a lot of runners slower than I am. But when you look at the front of the field, you have people with talent. A lot of talent. And sure, some of them might have been brilliant at other sports but chose running as the sport they wanted to compete at. Would you describe Eliud Kipchoge as a glorified walker? No, me neither.

    I think the point is, running is accessible to almost everyone, whether you have the talent for it or not. It's fairly unique in that a shuffling penguin like myself can run in the same race as Mo Farah (something I did at The Big Half this year), whereas someone who plays football on a local team once a week is not going to be playing in the FA Cup. Those guys and girls at the front of the field, though - they're athletes, make no mistake about it. They understand nutrition, hydration, race strategy and a multitude of other things. Running, or specifically, racing, is a sport. Just one that is very inclusive.
  • Stephen E FordeStephen E Forde ✭✭✭
    edited May 2018
    Just try being a good runner with out physical coordination, timing and aggression. Just try running a relay race without the ability to work in a team. No discipline? Stay on the sofa. No ability to read the oppositions weaknesses and create a strategy? You will never win a place on the podium. Running is a very simple sport to do because unlike team sports you don't need anyone else to do it, not even a coach if you know what your doing. The equipment is minimal to say the least. Just try taking up the javelin or the discus down your local park....
    While running is involved in many sports most sports don't require a lot of running to be the sport. In fact if you ran a lot in a football match you would be missing the point, as is the same in tennis for instance. In both these sport running is a means to an end. Namely positioning. Once that is achieved you stop and do something else. Kick, volley, smash, back hand etc. You don't need to develop the running ability of a runner. Even some runners don't have to run far...but that a different story.
    So yes running is a sport. The most basic and the oldest. Get from here to there faster than every one else and you win. What can be more sporting than that?
    On your marks, get set.....
  • rodeofliprodeoflip ✭✭✭

    I think you could describe any "sport" in those terms. Football is just running with a few stops to kick a ball around (and at the highest level, a bit of acrobatics when tackled). Golf is whacking a ball with a  stick. Swimming is just not drowning.

    "Not clickbait" but what's your point? All sport is ultimately just exercise.

  • Andy B6Andy B6 ✭✭✭
    I think his point is that runners are a bunch of boring losers.  Most people run as a means to an end.  But running just to get better at running is a bit sad. I mean look at Seb Coe, he was just a runner and what has he achieved in life?  Not much at all.
  • Has been for me, hadn't done anything for years and now loving running
  • In my opinion, I've treated running as the ultimate competitive sport... Very odd statement, but the reason I say that, is because it's you against you. You're competing against yourself. Are you better than the you from 1 year ago? 1 month ago? 1 week ago? There can be no excuses that the other team/competitor has an unfair advantage... as the other team/competitor was yourself

    To be honest that's just my opinion, and that's been my motivation for running. Setting a goal and recording my runs, hoping to see an improvement!
    www.cluelesscardio.com
  • rodeofliprodeoflip ✭✭✭

    I'll tell you the "sport" which requires he least sporting ability - football. 22 grown men fight over a pig's bladder while trying to not upset their hairstyle. They run, what, about 6 miles over the course of 90 minutes. Sometimes these bursts of speed are quite quick but they're very short-lived and then there's a rest where they just walk around and recover. I'm twice the age of some of these players but I could comfortably run twice as far as them over 90 minutes, and without moaning afterwards that I'm too tired to do it again a few days later.

    Maybe spending a little less time on hair and tattoos and more time on fitness? Would be interesting to see how fit these idiots actually are - would love to see them run a HM during their football training to see if they could finish it and in what time.

  • On the subject - the first year of the Westminster miles there was supposed to be a professional footballers race - never happened. Me and my mate were discussing how long it would take someone like Gareth Bale, I said he could be sub5, mate disagreed.


  • YnnecYnnec ✭✭✭
    edited June 2018
  • GuarddogGuarddog ✭✭✭
    About two years ago I accepted the challenge of a mate at work to organise a 'veterans' football match between our respective friends. I'd not played a competitive match for over 10 years (as had none of my team mates), however I came into the game on the back of HM training where I'd run 1:51 a couple of weeks before and figured I was carrying in to it a good degree of fitness. So much so that to convince those who were reticent of playing I told them I'd do all the running.

    The result was that I have never ached so much after 90 minutes. 

    Don't confuse your fitness with that of a footballer. The two are completely different. Whereas I could happily do a two hour long slow run, and the next day do a recovery run, I could not move after this game. I struggled for a week. The difference was primarily that when I run I pretty much go in a straight line and can run to a rhythm. When I played football it was stop/start, changes of direction, contact with other players, short bursts and sprints to get in to position. Something that my body wasn't used to. Yes I was fit, especially for my age, but I wasn't fit in terms of playing football.

    Professional footballers are fit. They have to be.
  • Short answer: Yes.
  • I don't consider myself an athlete at all, but I run. Actually, that may be an understatement - I run marathons and ultra-marathons. No athletic ability needed, just the want. I don't take part in any other sporting things and I've never had any shining ability in anything sporty - but I want to run, so I make it work for me.
  • Well i have only done 2 marathons myself, and do track races, but if you've seem my pathetic attempts at throwing, long jump, 100m.. etc you would see why I class myself as a runner, NOT an athlete! Still think it's good to challenge yourself, although I see loads of folk challenging themselves up the distances, you don't see many trying to go for shorter and faster..i suppose there's less opportunity to do the races.

    Regarding football, thanks for the Bale article. I bet he could do 4.45, coming off the end of the season at RM and still being fit. Football uses so many more muscles agreed - its usually the glutes that kill after a match!

  • JT141JT141 ✭✭✭
    edited June 2018
    Anecdotally I get the impression there's a bunch of people who come to running late who weren't sporty, didn't like, were put off, and/or avoided active sport at Secondary school age. I'm one of them. There might be an argument that running is a sport or active past time that attracts people who don't like the some of the more aggressive and overbearing culture of sport. My sports teacher seemed to have reverse engineered "Lord of the Flies" and used it as a teaching guide. He was obsessed with turning us into men, which in practice seemed to mean a violent sociopath. But I digress...
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    2308 said:

    Running is something people do. It's whatever you want it to be.


    I don't see the need to overanalyse it, or to accept it's belittlement. It's there if you want to use it.

    And yet, on another thread, you seem quite happy to question the achievement of others where you talk of people "failing the challenge".
  • rodeofliprodeoflip ✭✭✭
    Footballers are generally not fit - yes there are some who might be, but for the most part, playing football consists of standing around watching other people kick a ball around, maybe walking around a little and a few short bursts of running. There's a few kicks of the ball as well. At a professional level, there's also some theatrical diving and the need to wave you arms in the air every time the ball goes off the pitch or if something happens you don't like. Bale might be able to run 4:45 for a mile, but no-one knows. I think he'd struggle to run a HM in 90 minutes, but again, no-one knows, he hasn't done it. All we do know is that he's managed about half that distance in that time in the past. 
  • YnnecYnnec ✭✭✭
    rodeoflip said:
    Bale might be able to run 4:45 for a mile, but no-one knows. I think he'd struggle to run a HM in 90 minutes, but again, no-one knows, he hasn't done it. All we do know is that he's managed about half that distance in that time in the past. 

    Oh well, hopefully he can find solace with his £350k a week salary.
  • GuarddogGuarddog ✭✭✭
    rodeoflip said:
    Footballers are generally not fit - yes there are some who might be, but for the most part, playing football consists of standing around watching other people kick a ball around, maybe walking around a little and a few short bursts of running. There's a few kicks of the ball as well. At a professional level, there's also some theatrical diving and the need to wave you arms in the air every time the ball goes off the pitch or if something happens you don't like. Bale might be able to run 4:45 for a mile, but no-one knows. I think he'd struggle to run a HM in 90 minutes, but again, no-one knows, he hasn't done it. All we do know is that he's managed about half that distance in that time in the past. 
    I think you're allowing your apparent dislike of football and footballers to form your opinion. 

    I would suggest, as above, they are fit. However their fitness equates to the sport they're playing. Usain Bolt would have struggled to do a half marathon, but would you have said he's "generally not fit" as he only ran a maximum of 200m?

    I don't doubt a professional footballer would be able to run a half marathon. The average distance covered in a game is 7 miles. It would be interesting for you to play a full 90 minutes of football and see how you feel after.
  • rodeofliprodeoflip ✭✭✭

    It might be interesting, and I may well be wrong. I don't play football, and you're right, I don't hold it in high regard because I find the constant cheating by all footballers to be a bit wearing. I mean, every time the ball goes out of play there seems to be an automatic reflex action to turn to the referee and stick the arm up. Every time there's any decision they don't like then they harass the referee. Can't stand it - the players are paid to kick a ball, not to influence the referee's decisions. They don't need to gesture or speak, and they should be sent off for doing so. Sounds harsh, but it's called being professional. The managers are just as bad, jumping around and shouting like demented chimps who've been force-fed blue smarties. The whole thing is becoming ever harder to watch - why have a referee and then allow the players their opinion?

    My point was just that while there are some fast bursts of speed, these are not prolonged, and it's mostly just jogging / walking / standing still. Yes, there is the kicking of the ball, but in terms of factual / scientific definitions of "work done", it's not a lot. The ball is in constant movement, the players aren't. They are playing for 90 minutes, and I don't think an average of 13 minutes / mile is desperately difficult for any athlete.

    Their fitness does equate to the game they're playing, I agree, and maybe they don't need to be fitter than they are. Maybe being able to run 7 miles in 90 minutes is fit enough? They just have to be as fit as the other team, I suppose.

    My point is simply that if an old fart like me can cover twice the distance they can over the same time, and not just once a week, how come a top footballer in peak physical fitness (with no other job conflicts and access to massive resources) has to be "rested" between games? I've even seen footballers look tired at the end of a game, 90 minutes often looks like too much for some players.......

  • rodeofliprodeoflip ✭✭✭
    I'm really just saying that far form being a sport for people with no natural ability, it's quite the opposite - even the people who play the most popular game in the nation at the highest level would struggle to keep up with a decent club runner, based simply on data and facts of physical "work done".
  • YnnecYnnec ✭✭✭
    edited June 2018
    rodeoflip said:

    I don't play football

    You're pretty dismissive of footballers' fitness. Why not compare yourself to them? 

    Get yourself some cones, complete the tests in the article below (maybe suggest them as an activity for a training night at your club?) and report back:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/11063463/Test-yourself-are-you-as-fit-as-a-Premier-League-footballer.html
  • Sub17ParkRunSub17ParkRun ✭✭✭
    edited June 2018
    Football requires multiple short  sprints and periods of recovery in between. The average pace of 13 minute miles for a 90 minute football match is absolutely meaningless. Most footballers can run under 12 secs for 100m and some under 11 secs for 100m. Running 4:45 mile is more obtainable than having the ability to run under 12 secs for 100m. You also need to have the ability to play football and not just be a sprinter or endurance runner.
  • rodeofliprodeoflip ✭✭✭

    Then why do they do so much standing around? Watching Brazil last night, even the commentator mentioned that Neymar's game seems to be based mainly on just standing around waiting for the ball. There was also a comment that one of the players (can't remember who) had run much further than the others, possibly as much as 22K over 2 games.

  • NaderNader ✭✭✭

    I can't speak for football, but I can speak for (field) hockey which you could argue is pretty similar in terms of required fitness/movement etc.

    What I will say is that the type of fitness required for hockey and the type of fitness required for running are completely different. Two summers ago I spent 16 weeks training for a marathon, ran it in 3:38, then went into the start of the hockey season having not done any pre-season fitness on the assumption that I would be fine having been covering 50 miles per week. Wrong! In the first match I couldn't believe how unfit I felt, was shattered within 20 minutes.

    In a hockey match I may cover about 10k in the 70 minutes, a distance which if I just went out and ran it on the road in that time I would barely break sweat (I can run sub 40 10k), yet after a hockey match I am tired and parts of me ache that would never ache after running. There may well be some standing around, but there are also times I am sprinting in bursts, and crucially, suddenly stopping and changing direction. It also requires concentration on a far higher level throughout the match, even when standing around (because you are focusing on who you need to be marking, and getting into good positions for when a team mate has the ball so you are available to be passed to). That mentally drains you too in a way that running doesn't.

    The two are completely different. During the hockey season I will play a match on the Saturday, and then treat an hour run on a Sunday as a recovery run to shake out my muscles that ache. I may well cover greater distance in that recovery run on the Sunday than in the match the previous day, but I know which leaves me feeling more tired.

    I would say a football/hockey match is on par with a hard fast 10k and the recovery needed is similar.

  • GuarddogGuarddog ✭✭✭
    rodeoflip said:

    Then why do they do so much standing around? Watching Brazil last night, even the commentator mentioned that Neymar's game seems to be based mainly on just standing around waiting for the ball. 


    Is it possible that you've only ever watched a game on TV? That would then dictate what it is you see. You wouldn't necessarily see the movement players make off the ball, the running into space in the hope the ball might be played to them. If you saw a match in the flesh, as it were, you might get a different perspective. 

    Additionally Neymar carries around with him a certain reputation that does make him open to the kind of observation that he's not doing a great deal. I wouldn't say I'm his biggest fan and can understand the criticism he receives, however it would appear those who have paid £200m for his services in the past understand what his game is about. And it's not about chasing or closing down or defending, it's about being in a position to receive the ball in the last third of the field where he can be the most effective. 

    Players will walk during a game as a recovery. Where is the need for them to be able to run at a decent club runner's pace for the entirety of a game? That would just be pointless in the same way it would be pointless for you to kick a ball during the whole of a half marathon.
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