I don't mind not being associated with this culture of masculinity that often promotes violence and misogyny.
The negative sides of masculinity (overplayed and misunderstood by the contemporary West due to the influence of Critical Theory over traditional academia), are overwhelming offset by the advantages.
In some ways running is far too hard (or too masculine?) and the level of physical and cardiovascular conditioning is far too high to be accepted by the general population. Even the world's best female distance runners today would completely destroy a professional male soccer player in pretty much any race from 800m upwards. And soccer is a sport which is essentially running and kicking a ball. Gym bros would struggle to run beyond 400m at female WR 5000m pace.
Basically running is just too far right of the bell curve to be considered worthy by the general sports population.
"This is why the athletes in the pentathlon are most beautiful, because they are naturally adapted for bodily exertion and for swiftness of foot" - Aristotle, Rhetoric.
It's about extremes, and balance. The problem middle (to a degree) and long distance running has is that it requires a significant cost in size, which incurs multiple physical and social penalties. You're light, physically less attractive, and physically frail - to put it bluntly.
Look at track and field athletes in sports which require some degree of size and leanness. They're by far the most aesthetically pleasing, and look the healthiest. They invariably have a glow about them. The long jumpers, high jumpers, decathletes / pentathletes, runners up to around the 400 (with a few 800m runners, especially on the women's side, creeping in) all look like the famous Greek statues of athletes (embodied by Polykleitos statues like 'Doryphoros').
I also think this point applies (if not even moreso) to a significant number of gym bros who take it too far in the other direction, not to mention neglect athletic and cardiovascular development.
This post was edited 12 minutes after it was posted.
Also doesn't help that the sport tends to attract the kids who don't have the general athleticism to play the other sports that require more coordination. And the fact that it tends to attract the weirder, more socially awkward kids for one reason or another (I am one of those)
Pushing back against the message boards’ misogynist image, Johnson maintains that the “most bashed” people in the history of the boards have been white men; when he was a star runner at the University of Oregon in the mid-2000s, the message board invective aimed at Galen Rupp was apparently so severe that Oregon’s associate athletic director Vin Lananna and Rupp’s coach Alberto Salazar approached Weldon Johnson at a track meet and “laid into him.” (The site subsequently installed a filter that made it impossible to use the words “gay” and “Rupp” in the same post.)
Running through the snow and rain, doing track intervals, doing hill repeats, enduring the pain of an 800m race are all more difficult tasks than just lifting weights at the gym. So why are gym bros considered masculine but not runners?
Is it fair to state that Letsrun is the most disliked outfit in the sport of track and field athletics?https://twitter.com/Cathal_Dennehy/status/1693762070674632999?s=20
Running through the snow and rain, doing track intervals, doing hill repeats, enduring the pain of an 800m race are all more difficult tasks than just lifting weights at the gym. So why are gym bros considered masculine but not runners?
I think that depends on your definition of “masculine” tho. I wouldn’t really consider any sport masculine, except maybe football/rugby.
When I was in college, I was top 3 on my college team. I was my team’s best miler. Our best runner went professional, and I chose to serve in the military. I entered service weighing 135 pounds. The runner on my team that went pro weighed around 145 and he was 2 inches taller than me. Fast forward 8 to 10 years he came to visit me and my wife. I went through some rigorous training in the military that a 135-pound male could not possibly get through I bulked up and weigh 175 on a small day and 185 on a heavier day. Prior to the military I could bench press around 150 pounds. Post military even after being disabled I could rep 225 pounds and maxed out about 4 years ago at 315 pounds. Back to him coming down to visit he decided to get drunk and act like an idiot like we did in college, and he decided to challenge me after disrespected my wife. I explained that this is not a good idea for him to behave this way and the moment he shoved my wife I easily wiped the floor with him. Needless to say, he left my house the next day sore and beat up and yes, I was still nice enough to let him sleep it off. I have however not heard or talked to him sense. The problem is I have grown up and he still acts like a child and forgot important aspect runners are not typically strong and scrawny does not work in a fight.
Well for starters it's not masculine. It's right up there with sitting down to pee. Quit crying about nothing, unless of course it hurts when you sit down to pee.
Let’s be real people are judged on aesthetics and runners have generally a sickly build. Hell I’m 6’3 165, I’m one of them.
Now granted putting on weight while training has been impossible, I am aware enough to know that I’ll be viewed as the skinny runner not the heroic guy who grits his teeth through tough intervals on the track.
I don’t care though, the journey of improving in running has given me too much joy to let others take it away from me with stuff like that.
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