The Running Culture

            Runners live in a world dissimilar from the rest of the population. They have their own culture and similarities in goals, which are distinct from many humans’ goals. In an analysis of the two articles below, the subject is of interest to most of the people within this population of runners.

Alex Hutchinson, the author of The Morning Person Advantage, writes about the likelihood that more morning people, rather than night “owls”, will become competitive athletes because most races are scheduled in the morning. The three Aristotelian appeals are used throughout his article. He appeals to logos with the statistical information he provides by presenting charts of the information he researched to solidify his claim. The appeal to pathos is evident when he describes the time of day that many races take place as, “an unpleasant fact of life”. His word choice is influencing his audience to think of this time of day in an unfavorable manner. Furthermore, an appeal to ethos is also achieved when he mentions the opposing side of his research. His tone is rather friendly, especially at the end of his article when he recommends making events at a later time of the day to benefit those athletes who are being left out because they are not morning people.

The same author, Alex Hutchinson, also wrote the article, Runner’s High From Medium But Not Hard Exercise. Here he writes about how there exists a certain range of aerobic intensity that gives runners a high. However aerobic intensities above and below that range do not produce a runner’s high. Here he also uses the three Aristotelian appeals. He cites several sources from which he got some of his information from and uses statistics again through the form of a chart to clarify his statements. This appeals to logos. He appeals to ethos, as well, when points out some inaccuracy in the research he found. This shows that even though he agrees with a large part of the research, he is aware of the faultiness in some information and does not fail to express it. In addition, there is also an appeal to pathos when he uses the phrase, “sweet spot” to equate to the runner’s high that is achieved by performing some types of aerobic exercise. A runner’s high is already a favorable state, but with his word choice he emphasizes this to appeal to his audience.