Its very important to stretch before and after running or any other type of physical strong movement. Your legs are the most important to stretch but EVERY muscle needs to be stretched! If you don't stretch many things could happen. The nicest thing that could happen would be being a little sore. Now there are many different ways of sore. There is the sore where you think that you are sore so you show that you are "sore"...but honestly what a fake. Trust me people will notice if you are "sore". The true sore is where you could plop down and its hard to really move....haha but that's where you didn't stretch comes in hand. If you are really that sore then you didn't get that good of a stretch in. Tip: Stretch more then you think needs stretching! For a typical athletic runner it should take you 5 minutes to stretch. That would be doing each stretch for 12 seconds each.
The worse thing that can happen because you didn't stretch would be not being able to run again! Ouch! Some other typical injuries would be pulling the muscle, tearing the tissue in the muscle, or straining the muscle. If a runner were to pull the muscle the best thing to do is STRETCH and ice, you should be back running soon. A runner who tears the tissue is out for 3 weeks, and all you can do is STRETCH, ice, STRETCH, ice and more STRETCHING! If you strain a muscle I'm sure you know what to do...sit on the coach...NO! If you did that I would hunt you down you crazy fool...you have to STRETCH and ice.
Well so if you don't stretch you are just risking an injury. And you never know how bad your injury could be...so stretch! Stretching is the most important thing about running and any other work out you have in mind.
Well that's all for now...I hope to see you coach potatoes out stretching before you go off running past. BYE!