This week continues with more good runs. Monday the reported 12K (6+6), tuesday 10K, wednesday 17K (increasing speed in the end), today another ordinary 21K in nice sunshine.
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The content of the post today is however something more deep. I noticed my former academic mentor, the legendary Jukka Kemppinen, touched running a few days ago in his blog:
I wonder what would happen if the basically fascist sporting craze could be suddenly refocused on singing, playing, and other development of social skills? In my opinion someone pumping iron like a madman or another jogging-maniac running against himself is the real picture of the selfist culture. Everything to me, measured! What is your maximal oxygen uptake and where does your cholesterol level hang?
(“Mitähän tapahtuisi, jos pohjaltaan fasistinen liikuntavimma ykskaikki saataisiin ohjatuksi laulamiseen, soittamiseen ja vastaavaan sosiaalisten taitojen kehittämiseen? Mielestäni räkä poskella rautaa pumppaava henkilö tai itseään kirittävä hölkkähirmu on todellinen kuva itsekeskeisyyden kulttuurista. Kaikki mulle ja mitattavasti! Mikä on hapenottokykysi ja millaisissa lukemissa huitelee kolesteroli?”)
Here you see a standard cultural oracle spelling his or her disgust in something he or she has no knowledge of. Something totally outside, something that could disappear at once, and the world would be a better place.
Granted, competitive sports as it exists in our world today has many “sick” characters. Every day the ladder that one must climb to participate in competitive sports undoubtedly results in innumerable individual injuries, mental miseries and – in extreme – ruined lives. Those individuals who are gifted and motivated enough to participate, must go through hard and “selfish” training periods. One might need to do most of the training alone. Against the units of measurement, whatever it is.
So what! That’s the whole idea of the game. Bigger, better, faster. Human nature. Never stop trying.
You must be also careful with what you measure. If we stopped that jogging-maniac and asked, it would turn out that in running neither VO max nor the cholesterol level is the thing you are looking at. I don’t know mine, and honestly don’t even care.
My counter argument to armchair philosophers like Kemppinen is this: did you know that all those classical artists you listen to from your Bang & Olufsen high-end set have gone through similarly selfish torture-training periods in their lives? We can only guess how many lives have been ruined in the competitive ladder ran by the gifted few who have entered the leading art schools. That’s how the system works.
By the way I’ve heard our top musicians, and the system that produces them, is run by the state. To contrast, those who lift weights or run do it on their own. If you didn’t know it, we don’t really have professional runners (and I guess the same goes for weight lifters) in Finland today. Competitive running is hobbyist stuff, which develops basic skills needed in everyday life, both private and professional. Competitive running is — in its own way — also social like any hobby. Just take a brief look at some of the running blogs I’ve added to the sidebar…
