Brief Look at the History of Running"That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run." And what a run it was.That's a line from the movie Forrest Gump staring Tom Hanks when Forrest runs in scene after scene after scene. He ran for over three years. WOW! This part of the movie, I feel, symbolized the running craze of the 1970s. Since then, running has captured the attention of millions of people. There are thousands of road, trail and mountain races and marathons held throughout the world each year. But you don't have to run like Forrest did to reap the benefits of running. All it takes is about 30 minutes, three times a week to enhance your life. Throughout this site, I have sprinkled here and there some of the benefits of running...but now let's take a fun look into how running became running. People run everyday, well, maybe not "everyday" but have we devoted any time of our brains to wonder where the origins of running evolved? Hopefully not. Still, running has a great history and if I had spent some quality time researching it, I would tell you about it in great detail. So, instead I will wing most of it from my learnings from my junior high, high school and college days. Here we go... Running evolved approximately 6 million years ago, give or take a couple (million years that is), when human beings started walking and running. Running stems from the ancient times when the hunters and gathers (homo sapiens) sometimes had to flee to escape predators. I would run like heck too...wouldn't you? During those prehistoric times, our ancestors discovered that a sedate "walk in the park" mentality usually resulted in them being flattened like road kill by the hordes of ancient, stampeding animals. Ancient Greece gave us the Marathon, a significant part of running history. In 490 BC, Pheidippides, the ancient Greek hero, was chosen to run 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the battlefield near the town of Marathon to Athens to announce Greek victory of Persia. Unfortunately for him, they ran out of sports drink and he collapsed and died after his famous last words "Rejoice, We are Victorious." This historic event is supposedly where the Marathon got its name. Many scholars believe this story may be a myth but the legend lives on. According to early records, the first ancient Olympics were held in 776 BC. The first modern international Olympic Games to be organized by a committee started on April 6, 1896 in Greece. Brief Recap:
A very very very very long time ago - humans started walking/running And to this day, people run for many reasons. For some, running is a way to make living and for some running is just a way.
Run Happy!
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