Running is one for the great equalizers amongst the sports. You don't need money to run, you don't even need shoes. Marathons have been won by people in bare feet with not special gear or expensive training instruction. Running is like soccer, there is no cost barrier to running.
And this is a very good thing, because running is one of the oldest tools known to mankind. A runner trained for distance can cover distances that startle modern people raised with cars and used to thinking of feet as slow. Running was used a hunting tool before spears and bows, with distance runners literally running animals into heatstroke induced death. Running is the oldest form of self defense on the planet. Running is a powerful tool that the vast majority of people can advantage of without anything more than our own two feet.
And yet so few of us can run well anymore.
Scientists are beginning to look into the theory that running may be what made us human, by allowing us access to meat that could feed our hungry brain. Early human species could run properly- they weren't built for it. Just maybe, running is what made us human. And now most of us don't run.
Does that mean most of us have forgotten what it means to be human?
