Running

Thursday

The Spectator

The Spectator’s 2024 Holiday Gift Guide

Matt McDonald, managing editor As we grow older, the idea is that we become wiser. I’ve decided to buck that trend by making progressively dumber decisions that put me further from my goals of attaining professional success, home ownership, emotional stability and nirvana. The most recent of these is increasing the distances I’ve been running; I will be attempting a half-marathon back home on the south coast of England the week before Christmas, with a view to running my first marathon in Berlin next fall. It’s unclear why we as a species decided to adopt the practice of doing marathons a couple of millennia ago — the first man to do it did die at the end, after all.

gift

Thursday

Adrian Brune

Plogging: Europe’s bizarre eco-friendly fitness craze

The first finisher crossed the line sweaty, tired and almost black with dirt, his white Decathlon shirt turned gray and his standard-issue blue gloves transformed into a deep midnight. He dragged behind him a refrigerator-sized plywood box, piled high with swollen rubbish bags and secured with a hooked rubber bungee cable — where he grabbed that, nobody knew. Yet José Luis Sañudo Lamela’s smile was wide, and he laughed heartily when onlookers and fans expressed amazement at his feat. But despite Lamela’s assuredness that he would take home top billing in the annual World Plogging Championships, one man outdid him — if not in diversity of goods, in pure heft.

plogging

Monday

Ben Domenech

Tom Cruise must run to save the world

Tom Cruise runs as he does all things — nothing held back, nothing in reserve, nothing but the motion of arms and legs in the action of an automaton bent toward a single direction: forward, all systems go.  He has run across Red Square and the Charles Bridge. He has run across Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. He has run all over London, enough to be your tour guide for the particularly cardio-focused tourist, though his ankle bit it on a jump in Blackfriars. No matter: his recovery left his gait unchanged, that karate chopping, chest down, head forward momentum that turns the edge of the screen into the tape of a finish line. For Hollywood, it is the most iconic depiction of movement on film since The Horse in Motion. What would happen to Hollywood if he stopped?

tom cruise running

Sunday

Ericka Andersen

Why women shouldn’t run in the dark

Eliza Fletcher was abducted and murdered on her morning run last Friday. The mother of two young boys was up at 4:30 a.m. to squeeze in a workout before a hectic day of prepping her kids for school and teaching kindergarten. Many working moms understand why Fletcher was out running so early. There was probably no other time in her day to do it. Many runners understand why she was running in the dark. Training takes time and discipline, so pre-sunrise hours are popular to get in necessary miles. Fletcher was a serious runner who had qualified for the Boston Marathon and was heavily involved in the running community online. A chilling video image of Fletcher, dressed in purple shorts and a pink sports bra just before the abduction, left female runners nationwide gripped with fear.

eliza fletcher