There was a time when running was only for professional athletes. If you went outside for a jog not only would you get strange looks, but you could even get arrested for it. Authority was so unfamiliar with the act of recreational running that they had no clue how to handle it. So how did it become so popular?
After a trip to New Zealand, a university running coach was so inspired by his discovery of cross-country jogging and came back to the US to develop a running program for regular people. Runners became celebrities, magazine covers started to change, and companies like Nike gave in to the movement.
Basically it took up until the 1960s for running to really hit the streets. Nowadays, it’s so common that it’s almost strange to think it wasn’t accepted at one point, and maybe we can owe it all to the Kiwi’s.