We Are Born To Run

The human body is a strange thing. It is a collection of rocks joined together by rubber bands and cushions around which there are sacks of meat and fat. Wires from a supercomputer run along these rocks and connect to various different points, giving them electrical impulses that cause movement. Chemicals feed into the supercomputer and various structures along the body, making us feel happy, sad, angry, and various other emotions. Very few other living creatures on Earth are as complex as we are.

Of course, the 'rocks' I described are our bones. The 'rubber bands' and 'cushions' are tendons, ligaments, and cartilage. The 'sacks of meat and fat' are our muscles, the 'wires' are our nerves, the 'supercomputer' is our brain, and the 'chemicals' are hormones. Because our body is so complex, and our brain so large, we are extremely advanced, much more so than any other animal.

However, we are very bad at most physical activities compared to most of our fellow animals. In a 100-metre sprinting event, Usain Bolt would lose very easily to a squirrel, let alone a dog or a cheetah! A full-grown gorilla can lift two thousand kilograms, which is ten times its body weight, but the average human cannot lift even twice their body weight. We cannot see nearly as well as the eagle, let alone the mantis shrimp, which can see colours even in the pitch-black deep sea!

Keeping these two things in mind, let us consider this. Our brains started becoming very big two million years ago, which is the kind of growth that needs a lot of energy, because our brains use so much of it. This sort of energy can only come from eating animals, and considering early humans were known to hunt, this should not be very surprising. However, bladed weapons only came about two hundred thousand years ago, which means that for 1.8 million years, we were killing animals without any weapons, even though they are so much faster or stronger than us! The only way this could be possible is if we are physically better at something than our fellow animals- and that thing is running.

When we compare humans to other animals in long-distance running, we find that we are fantastic at it, much more so than any other animal except a few. For example, the cheetah can run much faster than us, but it can only run for a mile or so before collapsing. We are bipedal, which means we run on two legs, we do not have a lot of body hair, and we have a narrow pelvic girdle and a broad shoulder girdle. All of this means that very little of our body is exposed to the sun while we run, which is not the case for most other animals. Our core muscles keep us stable, and our knees and hips work as very good shock absorbers. All of this, along with our ability to sweat, means that we can keep cool while we run more efficiently than any other animal, and so, we can run for much longer distances without getting as tired.

But that's not all! Just behind our leg, above our ankle, we have a tendon known as the Achilles tendon which works like a rubber band to store kinetic energy as we run and release it when we push off the ground, generating a lot of force. The elastic properties of the Achilles tendon make it possible for us to generate enough force to lift eight times our body weight, and more than enough force to let us keep moving for long distances. We might not be able to run fast, but we can run for a long time.

Some scientists and anthropologists believe that we used our amazing ability to run long distances to hunt prey and capture animals for consumption before we came up with weapons to make it easier. Even if animals were stronger and faster than us, we could tire them out and work as a group so that bringing any animal down would be possible. This is the technique we used that made our brains so much bigger- we evolved as long distance runners that could conserve enough stamina to bring down any kind of prey with enough time. We evolved, in other words, to run.

If this is not reason enough for all of you reading this article to wear your shoes and go out for a jog, I'm not sure what is.

But while we're on the subject of shoes, let us consider the fact that many runners, when they have continued running for a long time, they eventually get a lot of injuries, some because of their shoes, some because of muscular or skeletal stress, and many others. If we evolved to run, then the question arises- why are we getting so many injuries from doing it?

The simple answer- we're doing it wrong.

Most of us today are concerned with running as a form of losing weight, burning the calories, and making up for excess indulgence. That results in running faster and harder than our bodies can tolerate; running with the wrong form, using the wrong muscles, and wearing the wrong kinds of shoes. Many people who run barefoot do it because shoes act as cushions that can make us activate the wrong muscles for running. When we are barefoot, we instinctively correct our form. I myself use running shoes, but the point still stands. Running should be done simply because it is fun, it is relaxing, it stimulates the memory and helps relieve stress. No one needs to teach you how to run, and no self-respecting runner should mock you for running slowly. You are human, and so, you are built to run. Considering the current situation we are in, a form of stress relief would be well-accepted, I think.

Go out and run, at your own pace, for however long you want, and you will all be the better for it.

Keep safe as you do it, though.

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