You must have a Screw Loose

“You must have a screw loose.” “Are there rocks in your head?” These are the two questions I was asked by my grandmother and grandfather, respectively, as I set out on a run the other day during temperatures hovering around 20 degrees. On the surface it does seem a bit odd to leave a temperature controlled environment to enter a potentially deadly climate for more than an hour to do something that can cause pain. However, my immediate response was that I felt they were the ones, in fact, that had a screw loose.

Why? By summarizing a chapter of the book “Born to Run,” I will explain and hopefully motivate you to consider distance running.. If you are not, it must be due to my poor summarization skills, and you should read the book to fully understand.

It comes down to why we are here. How did Humans make it in the beginning of the natural selecting animal kingdom? It comes down to eating and not getting eaten. It isn’t very helpful to run 20 miles when a tiger can catch you in 10 seconds and a deer out-sprint you.

First, let’s look at our anatomy. When conventional animals on four legs run, they get stuck in a one-breath-per-locomotion cycle. Humans, however, can pant. Why? To shed heat, which is also the reason we are the only animal that sweats. We are the best air-cooled engine evolution has ever put on the market. For example, after studying cheetahs it was found that when their core temperature hits 105 degrees, the cheetah shuts down and refused to run. That’s the natural response for all running mammals; when they build up more heat in their bodies than they can puff out their mouths, they have to stop or die. Further, the top galloping speed for most horses is 7.7 meters a second. They can hold that pace for about ten minutes but must then slow to 5.8 meters a second. But an elite marathoner can jog for hours at 6 meters a second.

To run an antelope to death, researches determined, all you have to do is scare it into a gallop on a hot day. If you keep just close enough for it to see you, it will keep sprinting away. After about ten or fifteen kilometers’ worth of running, it will go into hyperthermia and collapse. Translation: if you can run six miles on a summer day then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom.

As a hunter-gatherer, you’re never off the clock; you can be walking home after an exhausting day of collecting yams, but if fresh game scuttles into view, you drop everything and go. So we learned to graze, eating lightly throughout the day rather than filling up on big meals. This validates the theory many are adopting that eating numerous meals throughout the day is a healthier alternative to our conventional three big meals.

So why do most of us never want to exercise? Sitting around was once a luxury, so when you had the chance to rest and recover, you grabbed it. Only recently have we come up with the technology to turn laying around into a way of life.

 The brain is always scheming to reduce costs, get more for less, store energy and have it ready for an emergency. Runners know how good running feels because we’ve made a habit of it. But lose the habit, and the loudest voice in your ear is your ancient survival instinct urging you to relax.

We’ve taken away the jobs our bodies were meant to do, and we’re paying for it. Nearly every top killer in the Western world—heart disease, stroke, diabetes, depression, hypertension, and a dozen forms of cancer— was unknown to our ancestors.

If this isn’t reason enough, my grandparents' questions should be applied to you.