A heartfelt greeting to everyone, especially to those who have signed up for PhDistance over the past week or so. After a refreshing few days of running in the Catskill Mountains, I want to share a little more about who I am, why I run, and where I run. This is a post about what circles through my mind when I run. It’s about seeing the same people when running, encountering others in a singular context, and feeling some level of comfort and community in a shared experience. I hope you can relate to it.

The people in your neighborhood

When I began running about eight years ago, one of the doubts I had was in my ability to increase distance without stranding myself at a far off place, without water, transportation, or safety. It turns out that this may have been an unfounded fear, but it was nonetheless a fear I had at the time. As I graduated from “trying out running” to “becoming a runner,” I moved from two mile jaunts to twenty miles sequences by running the same six-mile loop around the small town of Montevallo, Alabama, where I lived. The familiarity of that loop helped me work on other foundational skills I would eventually need in distance running: timing hydration and nutrition stops, allocating physical and mental energy during distance runs, pushing through discomfort, mentally “chunking” sections of a race, and rallying after low moments.

Running the same route also gave me another opportunity. I quickly learned to enjoy seeing the same people at predictable times and places. As I worked toward building dedication to a new way of life, I somehow gained encouragement by sensing that other people around me are also grounded by routine. Many people like to run or walk the same routes.

The fact that I am hyper aware of other peoples’ running habits probably says a lot about the reasons why I started running in the first place. I wanted to run to center my mind and connect with my body, which I will admit is an ever-developing process for me. I liked the rhythm and comfort of running. Even today, I realize that returning to routes over and over minimizes the external logistical noise and makes it a little easier for me to settle into an experience in which I am not cycling through workaday thoughts and instead connecting with how I am feeling and what I am sensing physically.

Regardless of where I run, I try to take a look and see the other people around me. I appreciate who they are, how they are running or walking, and what brings them to the space. I will always remember my early days of running in Montevallo’s Orr Park and winding through the so-called “Tinglewood Trail”. Each morning, I would see an older man walking around with a squeeze-handle trash grabber. He would drive a small Datsun pickup and place trash in the back of it. He never said hello or appeared to talk to anyone, and I never talked to him. But I was amazed at his dedication and his hobby of making a public space better for all of us. As I headed out of town and up toward Stephens Park, I would see another single car in the parking lot. Its owner, a woman who evidently cleaned houses for a living (based on the decals on her car) would be walking a few miles before work. As the weeks and months passed, I would say hello when I ran by, and she would also say hello. At that time, as a new runner, I admired the consistency, both for what it represented to me and for what I imagined it represented to her. For me, at least, I was aware of becoming someone who took running seriously enough to do it multiple times a week. I had never thought of myself that way before.

Running regular routes

Now that I live in New York, the size and scope of my routes has expanded, but I still mostly repeat runs. I never stop enjoying the experience of seeing the same people again and again. I could write thousands of words about the runners I’ve encountered in Central Park or Prospect Park over the years. During the pandemic months especially, whenever I think I’m trapped in a vortex of the 3.3 mile loop of Prospect Park, I see a familiar face that reminds me my own journey is still in the earliest of early stages. I remember that guy who runs clockwise on the main loop of Central Park with no shirt on, no matter the temperature. And I think about the guy I see walking the Prospect Park loop who offers commentary on social justice, race, and other topics. One day he was deep into a polemic with himself about how we now have overwhelming evidence that Malcom Butler’s Super Bowl-winning interception of Russel Wilson couldn’t have happened without inside information fueled by a deep CIA-orchestrated conspiracy. How else could we explain that play call? I have to admit that thinking that question through occupied my thoughts for the next few miles. In fact, I’d been posing it to myself since the play happened in 2015.

The people I remember are those who are wearing, saying, or doing something unusual, or maybe they are people that I know, or know only at a distance. And I’m sure that there are people out there who see me in my same route and make similar assessments of me. And I know that in future posts, I will take a different turn and write about the benefits of breaking the routine and finding new routes. But for now, my appreciation of the people I see is one way I call back to the person I was when I started to run.

How about you? Are there people you notice that catch your attention or who have otherwise been part of your running journey over the years? You can always reply to these newsletters, and if you are inclined, keep sharing the newsletter with others.

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