God bless the French, my not-so-secret soul mates.
It’s nearly summertime, but the living isn’t easy — not if you’re suffering from a 401(k) meltdown. Life, in fact, is hard, and only getting harder. And when life gets tough, the tough get running.
While gym memberships are down and personal trainers are getting the boot, running is making a major comeback according to race directors and shoe retailers.
It’s easy to see why. Running is an inexpensive activity that requires little in the way of equipment — a decent pair of shoes, shorts, socks and a T-shirt and you’re ready. The playing field is any free land, sidewalk, park or road. (It’s not surprising that America’s first running craze was born of the economic malaise of the 1970s.) And most cities and towns have at least one running club, an informal group that meets for distance runs and interval workouts. In short, running is one of the cheapest forms of exercise a body can do.
But running is not just exercise. It’s a great stress reliever and an inexpensive source of neurotransmitters like dopamine that wash the body with good feelings. In stressful times, running can literally make us happy. Thus, being a runner is both an emotional and biochemical commitment.
Of course, some people “jog” purely for fitness purposes and hate it. This might explain why the French were recently in an uproar after photos surfaced of President Nicolas Sarkozy in shorts and a T-shirt breaking a sweat in the Tuileries.
Running is an American activity, the French press claimed, a fascistic act designed to manage and control the body. Not an intellectual pursuit at all. “It is about performance and individualism,” one writer wrote, right-wing values antithetical to everything cherished by the country that gave us foie gras.
Maybe “les francais” are upset over something else? Hmmm….
Born Curious 
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