The worst part was the teachers.
Now, I accept there are some PE teachers who are relaxed and friendly people (at our school we had one who also taught maths one year, and managed to single-handedly motivate an entire class into turning their terrible grades around), but for every good teacher there seem to be three terrible ones, overdosing on their own testosterone as they charge up and down a field bawling at people half their size.

Not being very athletically inclined, I've never understood the PE teacher mentality myself. If a child has trouble understanding quadratic equations or something, you'd help them out, explain it, and maybe show them a few examples until they get the hang of it. But if the same child isn't very good at football, it's apparently acceptable to publicly belittle them, and being a slower runner than others is a result of 'not trying hard enough' and can be remedied by shouting.

I hated the whole subject, but especially cross-country running. I failed to see the academic potential in jogging three times round the local park. One day though, my friend and I decided we'd actually go for it properly. Normally we'd jog for a bit, then give up and spend the rest of the lesson strolling casually and having a bit of a chat. But not this time! This time we were going to jog the whole way, really push ourselves, and earn the respect of our peers!

An hour later we've done it. Out of breath, with stiches in our sides, but we made it to the finishing line. We weren't the first ones there by a long shot, but we weren't coming in last either. Our teacher (one of the reasonably understanding ones) was impressed. "Good stuff boys," he said kindly, "you're all done. Head back to the changing rooms when you're ready."

Thouroughly pleased with ourselves, knowing we'd achieved our goal, we took the walk to the changing rooms at a casual pace, giving us time to recover our stamina. It was there that we ran into our other teacher, a sadistic rugby player with a face the shape and texture of a King Edward potato.
"Hmph," he muttered derisively, "you two don't look tired out. You can't have been trying very hard. Better give me twenty press ups."

Our protests that we had been trying, and only looked refreshed because we'd rested on the way back fell on unsympathetic tuber-like ears, and we were forced to do press ups in the cold mud (starting over again if he felt we'd done one wrong, of course) while the rest of the class filed past unmolested, scornful smiles on their faces.

I never bothered with cross-country again, and was very pleased when the bastard teacher left at the end of the year. In later years we were allowed to choose our own options for PE. My friends and I quickly cottoned on to the fact that if we chose Table Tennis we were generally left unsupervised (we had gained reputations as sensible lads by then, and the teachers knew we could be relied on not to dick about) and since the school only had one functioning ping-pong table, the rest of us could just sit playing cards for most of the afternoon.
(Uncle Comrade, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 17:58, Reply)