Widening the Running Paradigm

Looking back at the evolutionary development of humans, our physiology and subsequent bipedalism has become a characteristic trait. The whole idea of “persistence hunting” enabled humans to develop a respectable degree of endurance and efficiency. While we as humans are far from the fastest, we’d rank as one the animal kingdom’s finest for covering long distances. Yet, the act of running itself was largely an oversight among the non-athletic elite up and until the 1970s. Thanks largely in part to the 1972 Olympic Marathon win by American Frank Shorter, this event effectively set the wheels in motion for a movement that would later claim 25 million participants within a span of two decades.

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WIDENING THE RUNNING PARADIGM
Looking back at the evolutionary development of humans, our physiology and subsequent bipedalism has become a characteristic trait for our species.
Text by Eugene Kan

Looking back at the evolutionary development of humans, our physiology and subsequent bipedalism has become a characteristic trait. The whole idea of “persistence hunting” enabled humans to develop a respectable degree of endurance and efficiency. While we as humans are far from the fastest, we’d rank as one the animal kingdom’s finest for covering long distances. Yet, the act of running itself was largely an oversight among the non-athletic elite up and until the 1970s. Thanks largely in part to the 1972 Olympic Marathon win by American Frank Shorter, this event effectively set the wheels in motion for a movement that would later claim 25 million participants within a span of two decades.

Aside from Shorter’s historic win, the work of Nike-affiliated personalities Bill Bowerman and Steve Prefontaine cannot be overlooked – They were major catalysts in the development of running which trickle down to the masses. Since then, running has come to represent a substantial slice of the sporting pie, garnering sales of roughly $3.35 billion USD in 2009.

In recent times, industry running groups from the creative community have been popping up as a sort of social gathering. This has been an awesome development in a time where past meetings

saw themselves perennially linked to major booze fests as the unifying theme. Once again, I have to tip my hat to Nike for helping promote the sport into a greater lifestyle context through its crossover initiatives such as the highly respected fashion meets performance GYAKUSOU collection with UNDERCOVER. Without straying too far off the path of this feature, an increasingly serious obesity pandemic is taking over many parts of the Western world. Our ability to remain healthy through our youth and old age is not something people or myself should take lightly.

As a sport, running is as simple as they come. It’s something that the human body has largely been able to achieve without any outside instruction. It is at the root of almost all sport and something innate in our evolution. Yet we’ve seen running offerings diversify itself immensely in recent times. Despite the fact we’ve been able to run equipment-less, there has been a rather notable integration of outside influence in the form of running shoes. Most of what you see in the retail landscape follows the idea of cushioning, motion control and stability – under the assumption the human foot cannot oversee these biomechanical elements on its own – with extraneous technologies built in.Given the general diversity of the human species, there may be some basis for these extra touches.

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