Most small children love running. They need little encouragement to do so. Primary, and prep, school playgrounds are full of the constant buzz of physical activity. PE lessons featuring running and athletic activities are enthusiastically pursued.
Fast forward ten years. The great majority of adolescents are reluctant runners. House Cross Country events rarely present a school at its best. Lessons with a substantial running component quickly categorise themselves into the compliant athletes, the reluctant runners and the early walkers.
And yet another ten years further on, many of the same people have returned to running. Park Run, Race for Life, Fun Runs: all these worthy initiatives re-engage the teenage refusers as adults. Mysteriously. So, what changes at these various stages?
First, might be the perception of value. Running is not an activity that is imaginatively presented to children. The concept of "cross country" is not a universally attractive one. When schools position this in the worst weather, in underfoot conditions in which it would be illegal to keep cattle, often with inadequate kit, this is not an engaging prospect. Little is conventionally done to explain the benefits of running, or of cardiovascular fitness, or health impacts. Or to explain the place of persistence in the face of temptation to stop, the recovery from oxygen debt, or the fact that effort is actually measured in heart rates, not the speed at which the course is covered. Performers have no input into the task. Everyone runs the same distance. Rank order is very publicly evident, and reinforced by writing down times on clipboards and publishing them. Unlike any other subject, the remedial learners undertake more work than the most able, often running for twice as long to complete a fixed distance. A one size task will never fit all. Typically, the most able are under-challenged, and the least athletic hopelessly over faced.
Second: few adults run at maximal pace. It's too stressful. And painful. And yet schools almost always position running as a maximal activity, leaving finishers of all abilities in states of distress. Some pupils relish this, but the majority don't. Maximal effort is the advanced class of running, following mastery of steady state. It's like trying to tackle Shakespeare with a single figure reading age.
Is there an alternative? Could schools teach children of all abilities to love running? What might this look like? Almost certainly, radically different from the annual Cross Country season, or the shambolic, whole-class1500m. Pupils might learn to run within their aerobic capacity, and to develop both this and the distances that they cover. They might learn about persistence in the face of temptation to stop. They might have this explained to them, together with the discovery of the satisfaction of overcoming that temptation. The celebration might not be of the fastest times, but also of the persistence towards individual goals. Ways of rewarding effort and encouraging endeavour. All running achievement in adult life is individual, and triumphs are personal. However, too often when running appears on the school programme, the teacher's role is to say, "Go," "Keep Going" and "This is your time". Without offering any strategies for becoming more successful. And maybe a punishment for getting it wrong. Equally rare is the role model. Much more frequent is the teacher with a large coat, hat, gloves (and clipboard). Inspiring. Do as I say, not as I do.
Understanding why is the basis of education. Without that, pupils are rats on a treadmill: being exercised but not learning about the impact. Teaching running cannot be separated from the benefit. Without that understanding, it is unsurprising that it appears pointless to many adolescents.
The love of running needs to be separated from the concept of racing. Steady state is an altogether different thing from oxygen debt. Understanding the difference, and choosing an individual level of challenge should be at the heart of all running programmes
The opportunities for an imaginative running programme are enormous. But it is rarely a priority. However, consider this: which is a bigger achievement for the games programme of a school - eleven pupils winning a hockey trophy, or every child in the school being able to run a mile without stopping?
