The Importance of Running Community
My running partners were my daughters when I first started running in 2012. There wasn’t much encouragement from them, but it was comforting to have them with me, nonetheless. After completing my first 5K in September of 2012, I knew I wanted more community. Seeing all the runners out there in that race made me want to immerse myself in the running community. A quick google search led to a Miami Galloway group and, lucky for me, they were having a kick-off event in October. I remember emailing the group leader (shout out Jenniffer Johnson!) and asking if it was possible to commit to the group while also being a young mom of two. Her response? “My sister has two kids, too, and she’s a runner!” I showed up to the kick-off event, full of nerves, ran a few miles, and left feeling like a whole new person. I was seen as Stephanie and as a runner and, again, as a new mom of two, it was a gift to be seen as a person wholly independent from “mother.” I committed myself to the group and to training for my first half marathon, 2013’s ING Miami Half.
The Galloway group met every Saturday morning for the long run and each Saturday I was paired up with the same runner, a woman named Dana who became the ultimate running muse and the person who helped me see my true potential as a runner. I’ll never forget one of our runs on the Rickenbacker Causeway (Miami’s version of a hill) and her telling me that using my kids as an excuse for not running, was just that: an excuse. She had been a runner for years who also had two kids. During our time training together, she talked to me about balancing running and motherhood and challenged me to find that balance for myself.
I fell in love with those Saturday group runs and the process of training for a half marathon; so much so that I had signed up for three half marathons before even completing one. I went from running to inspire my daughters to live healthy and active lives to running for me. The support in the group pushed me to edges I didn’t even know existed. The saying about running farther and faster in a group is true: I learned it each Saturday and I lived it over the course of many miles together as a group.
After two years with the Galloway group, I moved to Chicago and spent the year there running on my own. Once I returned to Miami, I continued to run on my own because I couldn’t find a group that gave me those same feelings of connection and inspiration. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of incredible running groups in Miami, but none of them quite fit me and my ever-evolving definition of what it means to be a runner. Instead, I found community online through Instagram and through Team Sugar Runs. There is so much to say about the online running community, but I’ll leave it at this: the support felt from those miles, states, and sometimes countries away is just as good (sometimes better, honestly) as the support felt from those close to home. I’ve had online runner friends send me mail and, as someone who loves love notes via USPS, my heart has exploded in joy. My world as a runner has grown so much since I started running in 2012 and it’s largely in part to how far and wide the running community has spread and how easily different communities can connect to one another (looking at you Skokie Swifters and High Five 305).
Community is at the foundation of everything I do. I have been a part of so many great communities and I am incredibly grateful for how I have been accepted, seen, and validated by those communities. At each point in my being as a runner there has been a community there to affirm my experience and support me in my attempts at being my best as a runner. Like I said earlier, I know the power of community to help people go farther and faster. It’s this knowledge and lived experience that I bring into things like Great Smoky Mountains Running Experience and She RUNS This Town – Miami chapter.
We need community in every aspect of our lives. To think that we are stronger when we go at it alone is wrong. Possibility and potential lie in seeing ourselves in others and feeling supported by others. Truly, there is only so much we can do on our own and there are plenty of communities out that would benefit greatly from your unique experience and perspective. And, if the community doesn’t exist, let this post be a nudge in the direction of you taking action to create it. There are enough people around for all the communities to exist in harmony.
