Running is a skill sport. You have to practice, improve and maintain your stride just like a golfer does their swing. In my experience, treating running like a skill sport has gone further than anything else in preventing injury.
Compared to, say, rock climbing or downhill skiing, running isn't that much of a skill sport.
Rock climbing and skiing are arguably less of skill sports than something like surfing. There's a continuum, so I guess they're _all_ "partly" skill sports.
It's not intuitive because everybody can "run", but the deeper you get into that world, the more there is to understand.