"I hate running!"

Earlier this week, I was chatting with a colleague and she asked what my plans were for the weekend, a question I've heard a thousand times. I told her I had a couple runs to get done. She replied, "Oh, I hate running!" (Which is another thing I've heard a thousand times.)

I still haven't figured out a good response to this reaction. I used to be a running-hater, so I understand where people are coming from when they say it. I'm not trying to bully anyone into running, so I don't want to tell them to give it a try. I think maybe I'll try to get cute with it in the future and say, "I used to hate it too, until I developed Stockholm Syndrome."

But my lack of witty response isn't why this has been on my mind the last few days. It's the fact that I need to respond at all.

What other hobby is ever met with, "Oh, I hate that thing you like to do!"? This colleague likes to garden; I'd never respond to her weekend plans spent weeding and planting with, "I hate gardening!"

Why is this reaction to running plans so ubiquitous, and why is it so acceptable to say out loud? Why, with  this particular hobby, and no others?

I wonder if it's because so many of us had terrible early experiences with running. I've long held the gym-class-mile responsible for people's hatred of running, and I think that's valid, but I don't need to hear about it anytime the fact that I run comes up.

And to be clear, this doesn't really bother me. I'm more amused than anything. I think I'm so confounded partially because running is really quite popular these days.

It's gotten so popular, I sometimes forget most people don't run an easy three miles a couple times a week. Most people don't even run one. Most people don't sign up for races of any distance, let alone a half marathon, let alone four in a year.

And maybe that's what still leaves me a little speechless when faced with "I hate running!" It brings me up short and shifts things back into perspective for a moment. 

Running doesn't make me special, but I remember just before I started, I would watch the young women running around UF's campus and I wished I could be them. To me, running did seem like a special, unattainable thing. It felt like people who run were in a different category than myself. A better category.

When I said "I hate running" it was fueled by longing. By a desire to be better. To somehow become the kind of person who likes running, because those people seemed like something else.

And maybe that's what's been itching my brain the last couple days—the knowledge that some people who say they hate running secretly want to be runners. They secretly want to learn to love it.

I think if I asked some new runners, they'd agree with me. The self-doubt, the daunting slog to proficiency, the knowledge that this is a hobby that hurts...that stops most people from starting, but it fills you with a sense of pride once you overcome it, and I think most running-haters want into this club.

The good news is, it's open to everyone. Take it from a reformed running-hater herself.

Ali