Run where your feet are

“Run where your feet are” is the fifth post in a series about the human side of dailymile: How We Succeed. As a part of this series, dailymilers write about their experiences as athletes struggling to overcome obstacles and solve problems with the help of their friends on dailymile. Being an athlete makes our bodies stronger, but having the support of a crowd of athletes makes our minds stronger. This series highlights the side of training that requires more than muscle power. To submit your story, email the editor.



Submitted by Francesca T.

I suppose this is my running-related version of “bloom where you are planted,” an adage which encourages us to flourish in our current situations, with the tools we already have. That certainly holds true for me, as does the more literal sense of my “run where your feet are.” Over the course of the past fifteen years, I have moved around quite a bit. School, relationships, and pursuing my career have permitted me to live in Boston, MA; Rome, Italy; Sacramento, CA; Columbus, OH; Los Angeles, CA; Winnipeg, Canada; and finally Memphis, TN. It is only since I lived in Columbus that I have been a runner–i.e. just about four years now–but the idea of running where my feet are has allowed me to enjoy my changing settings, to explore these new hometowns.

All that moving around can take its toll on a person. And indeed I had some emotional, financial, and professional challenges in re-establishing myself in new places and situations. But more recently I have found that running, as my constant activity through these transitions, has kept me focused as well as entertained and physically fit. I will never be the most elegant or efficient runner, nor the fastest. Yet I believe my sense of mindfulness, which has grown out of my “run where your feet are” motto, gives me a running experience which translates well into other aspects of my life. By focusing on the here and now, I avoid dwelling too much on past mistakes and future anxieties. While competitive running requires learning from previous races and planning one’s training for upcoming events, I think running where one’s feet are can help us all appreciate the gifts each run–or each day–can bring.

As I look over the past few years from a running perspective, I see how training and races can provide a sort of chronicle for my life and an annotated map of the places I have visited and lived. Some examples:

My first 5k race ever, in Columbus, was a “dog jog” benefiting a local animal shelter. While I was thrilled to complete the race in a not entirely embarrassing time, I was still mortified to be passed by a St. Bernard at Mile 2. A year later, I placed second female overall in a small 5k, beaten not this time by a lumbering canine, but by a 12-year-old young woman.

Other Columbus races circled the Ohio Stadium, home to the Ohio State Buckeyes. As I’ve always been much more of an ancient history buff than a football fan, running around the stadium reminded me of the Colosseum in Rome–which has a seating capacity half that of its modern counterpart.

In Rome itself, I’ve run along the Tiber River and through the piazza in front of St. Peter’s basilica. The trick to running in Rome is to avoid the gawking tourists and slipping on the cobblestones while simultaneously appreciating the scenery and monuments yourself. Running the extremely narrow, steep, and curvy streets in my father’s hometown of Asolo, in the north of Italy, is too much of a risky test in a region which prides itself on cyclists. When visiting there, I prefer to just hike where my feet are, on Monte Grappa or in the Dolomites.

My first half marathon was in San Francisco. The hills were not as much as a challenge as was running with stomach flu, the symptoms of which only became apparent at about Mile 7 as I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. Another San Francisco event was the picturesque and lively Bay to Breakers, which I ran with the dubious distinction of being fully clothed. (Those of you familiar with the race will know what I’m talking about.)

In Los Angeles, I ran long laps on a dirt track around the Brentwood Country Club where I had the abundant awareness that I would never be a member of that establishment, for a number of reasons. I often spotted celebrities running in that neighborhood; I saw Jake Gyllenhaal so frequently, I thought of him as my fantasy training partner. For beautiful scenery and wonderful people-watching, almost nothing beats the paved beach path through Santa Monica; it gets especially and delightfully weird around Venice Beach.

Running in Winnipeg, Manitoba provides both trials and rewards. The bitter cold is, of course, the most apparent impediment to keeping up a running practice. I spent the winter on the treadmill in my apartment building. This might have been the most literal (and boring) application of my “run where your feet are” axiom. A major challenge is to find a hill in this Canadian prairie city. The track club there resorts to running up overpass embankments along the highway when hill repeats are called for. There is, however, a beautiful provincial park northwest of Winnipeg where I did some of my first trail runs and competed in my first trail race. To give you a sense of how rare any sort of elevation is in southern Manitoba, the park is named after a glacial esker which soars (ahem) 300 feet over the surrounding plains. The park is, nevertheless, where I discovered my love for trail running. As a hiker and former rugby player, I have found trail running in Winnipeg and elsewhere to be an activity which combines my enjoyment of scenery, technical footing, physical exertion, and falling down in the mud.

I was brought to Memphis in August 2010 by a teaching position at Rhodes College. It’s my hope that this will be an end to moving house annually, but I am certain that I will continue to travel and to run wherever my feet are.

In the few months since I have lived here, running has permitted me to get to know the various landscapes of Memphis as well as its eclectic community of runners. The change in climate–from dry, cold Manitoba to Memphis in August–presented a major challenge. The day after my birthday, within two weeks of arriving here, I ran the Elvis 5k. I was thrilled to see Graceland and to warm up for the event by jogging up to the memorial garden. Yet the humidity and heat threw something of a wet blanket (a hot one, at that) on the race and I ran my worst 5k ever. Yet the sights of Graceland and my wonderful new neighbors at the afterparty saved the day.

Long runs on Saturday mornings throughout the fall with the Memphis Gazelles got me out of my Midtown neighborhood. Weekday runs for me had mostly been on the V&E Greenline near my house, but the Gazelles pulled me east to Shelby Farms and Germantown. As I prepared for the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis–my first–with this group of runners, I learned about not just Memphis running, but also a social geography of the city and its suburbs. I returned to Germantown for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in late October, made all the more poignant for me as my stepmother, Lisa, had just been diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks before the event. (She’s doing really well now; thanks for asking!)

As I continued to train for St. Jude, my runs took me all over the city. Almost every weekend I could say “I’ve never run this far before!” Fourteen miles through Central Gardens and Cooper-Young. Fifteen miles on the new Greenline. Eighteen miles on the Wolf River Trails. And finally the day of my longest run before the marathon itself–twenty miles. It was chilly and rainy that day and I ran as much of the actual marathon route I could so as to prepare myself for the big day. Through the rain I studied my new city and its landmarks, memorizing the scenery so I could have a visual map on the day of the marathon.

Naturally, running the St. Jude Marathon was an excellent exercise in “running where your feet are.” The race brings out the best in this city, from Elvis tribute artists to the Memphis women’s rugby club to belly dancers to St. Jude’s varied communities to just regular Memphis folk. I was one of thousands of runners that day, but I felt welcomed in my new city and a part of something much larger than a road race. Friends from the Memphis Kings Scooter Club formed a cheering section for me at Miles 8/22 on North Parkway. One of my students at Rhodes hugged me as I ran by her soccer team’s aid station. Another student trotted a few blocks with me around mile 23 as I was losing steam (he earned an A in the class, but not for his marathon-day effort!). A colleague from Rhodes encouraged me at Mile 10 after winning her age division in the Grizzlies 5k that morning. Other friends waved from Cooper-Young and congratulated me at the finish line.

This attention to running where my feet are is more than just a way to create a framework for a personal and geographic history. It is much more than just appreciating scenery and people and events and training runs. It is being mindful of today, learning to stay in the present and to appreciate the gifts you have in that moment. Running where your feet are means avoiding regret or rumination over past mistakes or romanticizing how things were in a now-ended relationship. Running where your feet are means putting aside all the “what ifs” of a hypothetical future. Running where your feet are is appreciating the here and now, noting every literal and figurative footfall not as tedium, but as a reward in participating in a life, or an event, greater than you. Running where your feet are keeps you from thinking “I can’t do this” and instead turns your thoughts to “I am doing this.” (Thanks to my unofficial coach, Sage Rountree, for that excellent and encouraging observation.)

Whether I am in Memphis or some other place, I will continue to run where my feet are, to experience the here and now. My first trail ultra (my first ultra!) will take me to Arkansas next month, where I will see another part of the Mid-South. Work will take me to Ephesos, Turkey in August, where I hope to run on the continent of Asia for a first time. Just as I run with the body I have, with its limitations and gifts, I will run where my feet are, staying present to notice the wonders and challenges each footfall, day, city brings.