Jogging

Mark Remy noted that dead and injured runners are referred to as joggers in the press. Understanding what the issue is for runners requires knowing that running media spent the later part of the last century chiding readers to refer to their activity as running. Jogging was looked down upon as something involving Richard Simmons and neon jogging suits. Runners were told they were in the mold of Frank Shorter. We were all Olympians, marathoners.

Running shoe companies run ad campaigns that assert that you are a runner, not a pathetic jogger. An animal on the hunt, out for the kill, in for the win.

Rule ten from Runnersworld makes clear the view that jogging is a derogatory term, "If you care even a little about being called a jogger versus a runner, you're a runner."  Being a jogger is looked down upon. Active discrimination is encouraged. Which bothers me.

To paraphrase something Bones might not have said to Captain Kirk, "Damn it Jim, I'm a jogger, not a runner." Someday I will be road kill. And maybe sometimes I even run. But I jog and I am proud of it. Tossing my tennis balls in the air as I go. Joggling. Not rungling.

Those doing the memorial service can sort out whether I was a runner, a jogger, a joggler, or just plain not bright enough to know that juggling and running in the road was a bad combination on an island with no road shoulders.

Jogging is a good place to be - a heck of a lot better than being on the couch watching television eating ramen and kool-aid.