When did jogging & running become popular / normal?

Hungry for Miles wrote:

I saw an interview with Steve Cram recently who said that back in the 70's when he used to go out running as a lad, that people looked at him as if he was an alien and often asked him 'what are you doing?' with a tone that implied he was mental.

So my question is, when did it become common for people to whack on a pair of trainers and just go running / jogging around town without anyone thinking it to be weird?

Of course, I appreciate that this answer will very much depend on your own particular region.

In the late-70s, after publication of Jim Fixx's New York Times best seller 'The Complete Book of Running', and the birth of the 5-borough NYC Marathon and Chicago Marathon. Although even then if you visited a small town in the boonies, the act of jogging/running was viewed as an odd pursuit.

I think most people still think it is "mental." (i.e. Look at the obesity rates in this country)

After WWII, returning G.I.s brought back Japanese customs/religion of daily workouts and martial arts practices to Los Angeles/San Diego/Hollywood/Beaches. The exercise craze started with Jack LaLane in Hollywood, Seymour Gold['s Gym] in Marina Del Rey, surfers, volleyball players, etc. In 1980s in Southern California the amazing phenomenon of people running in shorts on sidewalks for daily mile runs started. By the 1990s it tapered off due to weird guys in cars stalking girls on runs. Many started running at public tracks at high schools then. By 1990s the high schools started closing the tracks due to liability concerns.

A few things happened.

1. People realized travelling to places like Cleveland or Houston was frogging stupid when they could go to Chicago or Austin, but now with a race there is a reason to stay overnight and spend money in these cities.

2. Banks realized that middle class soccer moms would pay any amount for a sense of achievement, any amount. The more expensive, the more achievement they got. Enter rock n roll and thousands of wannabees copying their business model. The banks realized that by offering a $.10 plastic medal, the soccer moms got even more of a sense of achievement, entering in greater numbers. But the $.10 medal was so attractive people who couldn't even get off social media long enough to complete the race distance were participating. The banks had to add full meals and on course entertainment to keep them coming.

3. The obesity crisis. Food became so available and so unhealthy in America that cities needed a way to get people to burn it off before 90% of americans became obese and the health system imploded. They encouraged these races to start up and built foot paths starting in the 70s, but especially in the 90s and 2000s. Now a middle class American didn't have the resources to eat healthy, but cheap processd crap was available for only 20-50x the value of the cheap plastic medals.

4. The everybody is a winner mentality. The boomers came up with this idea that nobody sucks. Now it was ok for an obese person to run a 6 hour marathon and they'd be cheered at the line instead of heckled.

Hungry for Miles wrote:

I saw an interview with Steve Cram recently who said that back in the 70's when he used to go out running as a lad, that people looked at him as if he was an alien and often asked him 'what are you doing?' with a tone that implied he was mental.

So my question is, when did it become common for people to whack on a pair of trainers and just go running / jogging around town without anyone thinking it to be weird?

Of course, I appreciate that this answer will very much depend on your own particular region.

Facebook.

People who participate in every other sport are jealous that their workouts are not as Facebook-able. The only exceptions are triathletes and ultrarunners.

Yistorian wrote:

4. The everybody is a winner mentality. The boomers came up with this idea that nobody sucks.

Nope. Any experienced teacher or coach will you this mindset is a Gen-X creation.

I grew up in the West and Midwest in the 1960s and 70s.

The first "jogging" boom hit in the mid-late 1960s. Doctors (e.g., Kenneth Cooper's Aerobics) started touting the benefits of aerobic exercise. So running hit the mainstream, maybe for the first time. Numbers were still kind of small; you didn't see many women out there, and men that ran tended to be middle aged, in cotton shorts an T's, often running at a track or early morning, etc. Kind of out of the way.

Coinciding with this, however, was the generation following on the heels Ryun, Lindgren, Pre. High school distance running became big in certain areas. And probably some of these blokes kept running after high school and college.

End of Vietnam war, Shorter and Wottle no doubt inspired post college runners to keep going. Rodgers' wins at Boston and NYC in 1976 were huge, and suddenly running became cool. Jim Fixx's book the Complete Runner was aq big hit and by the late 1970s it was fashionable.

(I recall Cram running sub 4 as a 17 yr old, back in 1978 or so--that made US news, so the era he's referrring to would probably be 1972-76, when he was just getting started and indeed it wasn't very mainstream yet at least in the 'states).

The second running boom lasted from the mid-70s to mid-late 1980s. Women's running became big time too.

As the boomers got a little older and settled into careers and such, things took a step back from the late 80s through most of the 90s. High school times fell off the charts and international performance by US and western countries fell off too.

Then came the penguin march. And as a popular "sport" it's been downhill since then. Indeed, the everybody's a winnner attitude (with the flip side of the coin that competitive runners are actually to be disdained) mushroomed. Then came the ultras and multi marathons a week mindset, where quality runinng means nothing it's how far, no matter how slow you go.

On the positive side, high school and college runners got back to basics and since the high school breakthroughs of the likes of Gabe Jennings, Webb, and Ritz the roll continutes.

So here we are. Post college/high school racing is on the outs, but mass participation/moving group hugs are in. Everybody gets a medal now and a few are getting very rich off the sport.

Cool, thanks for a nice overview!

For me, one of the ironies is that mass participation has never seemed higher but yet obesity is at an all time high in the Western world.

Maybe this is due to the 'everyone is a winner' mentality or we're seeing the real birth of a two tier society in terms of fitness: those who work to keep fit and those who couldn't care less.

I also grew up in the 60s and 70s. I saw it happen in the 70s. For women the Bonne Bell series was important. Also, girls sports in general exploded because of title IX. I was not a runner in high school, but I was a very serious athlete in another sport and some running was part of my training. So it was easy for a wide range of female athletes to continue with some running between seasons (this was before year round sports for most teams) to stay in shape.

As I got older, I stopped playing my sport but was able to keep running, because anyone pretty much can do it. I have a lot of friends who were competitive athletes in high school in a variety of sports who now run because its an accessible, competitive (even if you aren't competitive) sport you can do throughout your life.

We're in the middle of another running boom now, fueled by middle aged runners, aka, my age. Many races skew old and female. I think its because us Title IX babies are past the labor-intensive raising young children years and want to get back out there.

I see a more serious boom on the horizen with the kids coming up now. In my kids' schools, the interest in running has exploded. Girls on the Run will spark a handful of serious talents out there. Not many, but the more kids who run, the larger the pool of talent to draw from. And I think Meb's Boston win inspired a lot of kids as well, he's a great ambassador for the sport.

I bet if you research the term "jogging" you'll find your answer.

I'm 55, and from what I recall, in the 70's there was this kind of new concept called "jogging". It was considered to be somewhere between walking and running. Some study claimed jogging to be very beneficial, and something anyone could do, even if they weren't athletic enough to actually run.

So everyday non-athletes took up the practice and the non-athletic runner was born.

I also recall Jim Fixx's book had a big impact about that same time.

As for racing, seems to me that back in the day, a 10K was largely a walking event and was always for fundraising. One of your friends would decide to do a 10K and would come to you with a pledge sheet where you would pledge x-amount of money for each mile they completed. Kind of like your co-workers do with their kids Girl Scout cookie signup sheets.

Then I think as more people started jogging, a lot of them got hooked and wanted to actually run more, and the whole thing mushroomed.

Rodgers, Shorter, Wottle and Fixx - not necessarily in that order

Look them up. That ought to tell you when this occurred.

E. Bonix wrote:

Yistorian wrote:

4. The everybody is a winner mentality. The boomers came up with this idea that nobody sucks.

Nope. Any experienced teacher or coach will you this mindset is a Gen-X creation.

Ummm, Einstein... who do you think were the parents of Gen-X?

The boomers.

Looks pretty good wrote:

E. Bonix wrote:

Nope. Any experienced teacher or coach will you this mindset is a Gen-X creation.

Ummm, Einstein... who do you think were the parents of Gen-X?

The boomers.

Ummm... no sh!t Sherlock. So let me spell it out for you. Trophies-for-everybody and grade inflation was a concept designed for children of Gen-Xers.