This September Roger Bannister’s running shoes – the ones he wore to smash out the first four-minute mile – will go on sale at Christie’s. They look like two slices of beef jerky, held together with string and covered in spikes.
Because – and you’re going to want to smack a sports bra in my eye for saying this – what matters when you’re running is the running, not the gear.
Oh sure, you can make like my friends, and spend £120 on a pair of Nike trainers, ones with the name of your ex boyfriend’s new girlfriend specially printed on the tongue to give you rage speed, and some ‘strategically placed rubber pods on the heel and toe to enhance durability,’ but if you don’t then actually go for a run, it’s not going to make a single dry whistle of difference.
You can invest in an iPod sensor to add calorie goals and set distances to your favourite playlists, but if you don’t actually wake up an hour earlier to go for a run before work then it’s going to mean absolutely sweet sugary nads to your fitness.
You can spend hard cash and long hours in a sports shop getting a gait analysis by running on a treadmill before trying on a cornucopia of cripplingly expensive running shoes, but if you take the bus rather than run home from work once in a while, then you might as well have sung Witchita Lineman up a drainpipe for all the good it’ll do you.
Of course, looking after your body is important. It’s a good idea to run in proper, actual running shoes bought from a sports shop, rather than your sister’s old plimsolls. It is far, far better to jog in a good supportive sports bra than to turn your tits into a pair of fleshy maracas. There’s also far less chafing involved with sports leggings than those £7.99 cotton ones from the high street.
But – and this is a Kardashian-sized but – buying those things should facilitate exercise, not replace it.
As 21st-century products of our capitalist conditioning, we love nothing more than ‘investing’ in gadgets, trainers, fitness apps and ‘engineered’ sportswear. We shop our heads off in those rubber-smelling cathedrals of neon lycra. We spend hours reading up on and comparing various apps and training plans. But all that activity – all the shopping, the planning, the talking and the reading – can too easily replace the very exercise it was meant to help.
We’ve bought the trainers, we’ve planned the route and we’ve spent an inordinate amount of money on some zip-heavy leggings; all that makes us feel so satisfied we hardly need to go for a run at all. But don’t let it. Don’t swap sweating for shopping.
Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon in 1967 wearing less of a tracksuit and more a rain-soaked pair of jersey pyjamas. Women weren’t even allowed to run the Boston Marathon in 1967 – she signed up illegally as K Switzer and romped home in a pair of pearl earrings and a huge grey sweatshirt.
Billy Jean King won Wimbledon in 1966 wearing a pair of what look suspiciously like £5 plimsolls from Brick Lane and a pair of batwing spectacles. Wilma Rudolph became the fastest woman in the world and an African American hero after winning three gold medals in track and field during the 1960 Olympic Games, wearing nothing jazzier than a vest.
These women achieved great things because they pushed themselves, were disciplined, made the effort every day and didn’t give up.
So, by all means, buy yourself something nice. Replace your trainers if you want. Download a fitness app if you want to track your runs. But for the love of salty tits, don’t forget that the point of exercise is to actually exercise. And all that really takes is time, sweat, adrenaline, dedication, the odd blister and a fucktonne of oomph.
So stop shopping and start moving. You’ll love it. I promise.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.