i find it amusing

[trapperhoney]

Today I drove onto base to collect hubby from work and saw some people out running, but they were running backwards.  I had drove on base a couple weeks ago on a very nice day to find 5-7 people running backward around the building.  I find it amusing because hubby inadvertently started this.  When he was working with recruits he would lead them in physical fitness training, trying to get them ready to pass the physical fitness test before shipping off to boot camp.  Most of these kids are involved in no physical activity at all, except that of their thumbs (video games)  So leading them in the 2 mile run was challenging. Hubby would hang back with the stragglers and frequently run backwards to he could give them direction and encouragement as they ran and they could hear him (they would not have heard him if his back was to him.)  Kids who struggled to pass the test hubby would sit down with and talk with them and help them lay out a training program to follow through the month to get them ready for next drill.  Evidently some of the kids who were helped by hubby (who are now specialists and in some cases officers) have evidently been talking.  A guy who has kind of self-appointed himself as "trainer" at the armory stopped in a few weeks ago and asked hubby if he could run with him.  Hubby said sure, but he runs in the afternoons at 1500.  This guy preferred to run at 0700.  He said he'd stop in and run with him, but he never has.  Hubby tends to leave the younger kids in the dust during the run.  Evidently he talked to some of hubby's kids and they must have mentioned him running backwards, because it was probably a couple weeks after that when I saw the first group of people running on the base backwards.

It just goes to show how something can be misconstrued and then propagated.  If anyone had researched where this started and then come to hubby and asked why he ran backwards, what the benefit was, he would tell them -- the only benefit is to encourage my recruits.  So, I have a hard time not laughing when I see all these people jumping on the bandwagon of this fad that was started in a misinterpretation of facts that was not investigated.

[John81]

[Rebecca]

2 hours ago, John81 said:

backwards

[trapperhoney]

LOL! 

[Critical Mass]

When I played high school football I was always one of the slowest during sprints but when it came to the backwards running drills I was usually the fastest. Go figure.

[Invicta]

When I worked in London I used to take my sandwiches to a nearby Square. There was often a man there who ran round the block, then ran round backwards and then skipped round again sideways. finally he ran around forwards.

[trapperhoney]

would break up the monotony.

[Invicta]

I always thought he was a nutter.