SI Daily Cover: Running in the Age of Coronavirus

More than 40 years ago, pioneering author Jim Fixx’s best-selling book brought jogging to the masses, espousing its physical and emotional benefits. Now, those themes resonate more than ever with a homebound society.

With malls closed and sporting events canceled, perhaps you’ve taken up running. Or perhaps you’ve noticed your street filled with more runners than cars as shelter-in-place guidelines took hold across the country.

The godfather of running is Jim Fixx.

In 1984, Fixx was an overweight editor. So, he decided to do something about it and started jogging. Running was taboo back then. Even unhealthy. But Fixx’s life changed, and he wanted to change the lives of others. So, he wrote a book, “The Complete Book of Running.”

As noted by Chris Ballard in the SI.com Daily Cover story:

He included a chapter subtitled “Sometimes a Heart Attack Is the Best Thing That Ever Happened,” which included a detailed chart covering heredity, blood pressure, cholesterol and how to “rate your heart attack risk.” He took aim at running’s critics, who were legion at the time, including Charles E. Schmidt, a doctor in Indiana who in 1976 wrote an article in Playboy titled jogging can kill you! Schmidt argued, among other claims, that running is “one of the most wasteful and hazardous forms of exercise” and it could “loosen the linkage between the sacrum and the hipbones, cause slipped discs, contribute to varicose veins, dislodge the uterus from its ‘perch,’ produce droopy breasts and, in men, bring on inguinal hernia.” Fixx swatted away the claims and concluded that, while he couldn’t definitively say running made you live longer, “many scientifically sophisticated students of the subject think this is true.”

The reviews of the book weren’t good. But he became a celebrity as a fad became a craze. The book took Fixx to the White House and a run with President Jimmy Carter, who collapsed.

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