One checkbox and off you go! Both in the first confinement and in the following two, physical activity was one of the derogatory reasons for leaving home. Within a radius of one kilometer at first, then ten. Something to make some people want to bring out their sneakers again…
How many have been running during these special times? The Union Sport et cycle estimates them at 1.4 million, out of the 13 million French people in the discipline. Better still, 73% of neo-practitioners continued their efforts in 2022, still according to the same study, the only one of its kind.
Olivier Mimram is one of them. Like many others, this journalist at 20 minutes launched in March 2020 “to keep me busy above all”, he smiles. Not easy beginnings, even for this jack-of-all-trades athlete (football, tennis) who had calmed down in his fifties. “After ten minutes, I was at the end of my life! “But the inhabitant of Vendôme (Loir-et-Cher) had found another interest: the great outdoors. “After two kilometres, you are in the middle of the countryside…”
Since then, he has “intensified the thing” to bring the workouts to “3 or 4 per week”. Road, forest, paths, the neorunner says he is never bored. He even sees only advantages in going for a run: “It allowed me to regain cardiorespiratory health and to surpass myself. I have never been so fit in my life. I’m fit and I eat what I want! »
The fast-growing running department
These physical benefits are part of the strengths of running, confirms Dr. Denys Barrault. The former chief physician of the National Institute of Sport and Physical Education (INSEP) also observes an increase in the number of practitioners, without being able to quantify them precisely. But consultations for problems of “tendonitis in the Achilles tendons, knees, hips” have multiplied in recent years. “To avoid them, the main thing is to have good shoes, light and above all shock-absorbing. »
This is precisely another indicator of the good place of running in the hearts of the French: they devote money to it. “The turnover of the department has exploded since 2020”, indicates Samih Khalef, the vice-president of the commission dedicated to the Union sport and cycle and also country director France at Asics. “All the sports brands remain over two years with growth of around 20% in total and in particular in running. People went to equip themselves. »
Trail running, a new passion
In his “Endurance shop” in Strasbourg, Florian can only agree. “We have more and more new customers every day,” he says before discussing the current trend. The one that leads to the trail. “A good part of them get into it because it changes them and they often tell me that the landscapes are nicer. “Olivier Mimran supports:” When you have tasted it, difficult to return to the road”, judges the one who even pushed so far as to register – and finish! – “a race in the mountains”.
These are currently developing all over the territory. For what ? “Because they certainly attract with a more playful aspect but also because it takes fewer volunteers than on the roads”, answers Eric Thomas, a well-known character in running in Metz. Where he launched, in 2007, “the strides of Tom”. Either training open to all on Wednesday evening, without any registration.
“Now we are at least 250 each time and we were even 450! “, he appreciates, remembering the beginnings of waiting in the rain for “a few brave people”. “I don’t know if the craze for running dates from the start of Covid-19 because it was already progressing a lot before,” notes the boss of Run Grenn Scy-Chazelles. “What pleases is that it’s not expensive and it’s easy. We can do it when we want and where we want. »
The practice would even still have good days ahead of it, according to Samih Khalef. “We think that the Paris Olympics will give another boost. “The French, neorunner or not since confinement, have not finished running…