Erin Quinn

For me, every day is global running day. I’m not really sure how these days get coined as “donut day,” or “sister day,” but nevertheless they act as kindling fire for social media implosions. I’m not going to argue this one, because in my mind, what can be better than people getting excited about running and inspiring one another and maybe, just maybe, taking that first step that will set them on a completely new trajectory in life. One of health and happiness and outdoor adventure.

Running has been one of the great loves of my life. Like all things that we love, it’s gone in phases. There was the beginning phase as a kid when I thought my lungs would burst out of my chest while running the mile on a crushed gravel track for the Presidential Physical Fitness Test in middle school. Then there was the foray into cross-country running which, luckily for me, introduced me to a world of trail running right out my own backdoor that I could have easily missed had I not joined that team of off-brand geeks with super sinewy bodies, poor fashion and a deep respect for the outdoors.

I wasn’t the fastest. I rolled my ankles a lot. But inside my running body I could think clearly and practice gratitude and find beauty in small moments, thumbnail sketches of a landscape unfolding underneath my feet and just past my peripheral vision. I was lost in a world of pitch pine forests with roots that seemed to hold the mountain together. Everything smelled sharp as I ran. That piney taste would lodge in my throat and I felt like I was inhaling oxygen that was infused with something more. Like a super-nutrient. Everything had it’s season and they were much shorter than New England’s 4-season calendar. There was mountain laurel season and wild blueberry season and then the constant turning of the leaves until all of their color raged and faded and fell to the ground like an offering.

I wanted to run more and further and jump in the sky-lakes that decorated these trails like ornate pendants. I wanted to see the dwarf pines sparkling with fresh snow and the cliffs iced-over and the lakes frozen, becoming a trail onto themselves. I moved too fast and too far for my body and there were injuries and setbacks and sadness because aren’t those all seasons too? Loss of years without running and trying to find myself inside of a body that walked and swam and sat around reading to travel where my feet could not go.

There were the swollen years of pregnancy and those baby-jogger miles in local 5k’s and turkey trots and three circles around my neighborhood handing toys to my two boys and trying to entertain them or have them fall asleep while I struggled up the hill. When my third one was born, I was rich with a new kind of love, but fresh out of room in the jogger.

There was the kids-are-getting-older rebirth of running where I had a bit more time and space to get back onto the trails and off the road because there were cellphones for emergencies and the trails were less than 7 minutes from our front door step. Brick by brick I built my running self back up again and here I am, so grateful for all of it. The tumbles, the sprains the strains the tears the failures. I have scar tissue and life tissue and each run is like a fresh start on life. No matter what mood you’re in, you will come back with a different perspective. Because as much as running is a physical activity, adorned with sweat and salt and inconspicuous clothing and ugly-ass-all-sin shoes, it’s also a way that we hover inside the shells of ourselves, get into the marrow of our pain and find our way out again. It’s the most primal of activities and one of the most humbling because what is more humbling than stumbling around this world being human and flawed and messy just like a trail run where you come back muddy and bruised and flushed with your hair stuck to your cheeks?

I know there are people, so many people like me today, that for whatever reason can not run. Maybe they’re injured or sick or suffering from something that does not allow them to open up their stride and take a few leaps along this life landscape and my heart hurts for them because I’ve been there. Sidelined so many times, but there’s the thing about running. It’s always there for you in some form or fashion. You will be back. It will be waiting for you. And if you haven’t started that first step, just do it. One step. Run to the end of your driveway or hallway or run a flight of stairs. Skip a little at first. Go out in the night if you don’t want to be seen. Go to a track and say “one loop and one loop only.” Pick a tree and run to it and that’s the start.

We’re all runners inside. It’s how we moved away from things that were dangerous and how we made headway towards that which gave us sustenance–food, shelter, love.

So, on this Global Running Day, wherever that came from, I say, “heck yeah!” let’s celebrate every step that we were able to take today and let’s get excited about the ones we will take tomorrow. One step at a time. That’s how we get anywhere. Pick that tree or mailbox or mural on a side of a building and just run to it as slow or as fast as you want. Or, if you’re already on the daily grind, celebrate that body in motion and that feeling of ground passing underneath your feet. It’s kind of a miracle when you think about it. We get to be airborne and we don’t even have wings.

Erin Quinn