For me, my entire running career has taken place while I
have been on a team (speaking of which I should write my Running Origin Story
one day). I started running in High
School and immediately joined the track and XC teams and continued my career
into College and ran D-1 at Monmouth. Once I graduated college I completely stopped
running for about 8 years until moving to MD.
There is about a 7-month period where I trained without a team until I
met Ryan McGrath and joined the Falls Road Running team and that has been my
existence of my running. So, for me when I
think of running, I have always thought of it as a team sport (it is). The things I know about running are all social
and revolve around being a part of something bigger than just me. In High School and College, we represented
the school and we ran with school/team pride to do our best (but in reality we ran for each other the most) and now post collegiality
I run for Falls Road. Obviously, I race
myself to run a faster time and to improve but I thrive as part of a group for
so many more reasons than that.
For all my life I’ve known group runs, track days, trips to
races, and pre-race meetings with the coaches.
We were all there together competing against ourselves but we were a
family. If you’ve never raced in high
school or college and didn’t get to experience this, to me it was always
amazing. We were all humans we all didn’t
get along but we all pushed one another to be our bests. So, when I started running post collegiality
those first 7 months I felt lost. Yes,
it was good to get out and exercise and lose weight but running to me was
always linked to this competitive team idea and it was hard to shake it. Probably one of the reasons once I found
Falls Road my competitive fire returned so quickly. Everyday in HS/College I would grab a group of teammates
doing a similar run and catch up on the day, talk about college
stuff like which girls definitely weren't going to date me, and we’d talk about
our goals. Every track day we’d line up
for interval after interval and grind ourselves to exhaustion together. We’d pace off one another, encourage one another
if someone fell back, and all dread the next interval or worry about what comes
next for those scary workouts where coach didn’t tell us the full workout.
So, post collegiality I was so lucky to stumble upon the
Falls Road Running Team because honestly from talking to friends and others
groups like this don’t exist often. This group
was founded by some amazing people who took a couple of friends who loved
running and made this amazing family (I will continually use this word to
describe us) that transcends running. The
reason I use family is because we are all more than just teammates who all
race. This group has been what is always
so special about running to me, it’s honest like a second family. We do runs together, we do workouts together,
we go to races together but above all else we know and are a part of each
other’s lives (maybe sometimes too much just kidding). Through the years this
group has grown up from 20 somethings with no responsibilities to 30-year old’s
who are getting married, to having kids and then finding more and
more amazing people to join the group who are now going through all those same life events. We celebrate birthdays, we celebrate made up holidays
because Ryan has made it a tradition, baby showers, random happy hours, or just
a random event that Graham came up with to make us drink (50/50/50 next year!). To all of us who embrace this Fam, it gives
back so much to us. We have a loving running store (Falls Road Running Store) that supports us unconditionally from running to life. We share our lives, the bad and the good with
each other, we are there to help each other on runs but also when we need help
in our day to day life. Our love for running is
what brought us all together but that is not strong enough to keep us together
forever, and because we embraced this love for each other above all else, we
have been able to keep this group going for so long.
This past weekend I got to experience once again the joy
that is being a part of this special team as we all shipped out to the scariest
place in the world the “Eastern Shore of Maryland” to run the Tim Kennard 10 Miler
(or 5k, or Peck Family Relay). Some of
us were running a race, some of us were coming back from injuries, some of us
were doing workouts it didn’t matter a race was going to be run and that’s what
brought us together but the memories (people hate when I use this word) that
were made are what I’ll always remember.
We shared drinks together and caught up on our actual lives outside of
our splits during the latest workout, we shared a 10pm dinner that I almost
fell asleep during, we slept in bathrooms, and lastly, we ran a race. This weekend I did not race but did a workout
with a friend, but when I was finished I took so much joy from hearing the
results of all of my friends. We won money, sweet mugs, ran PR’s and we did
it together. Then as is our usual
tradition we took a group photo and then headed off on our separate ways. But only so separate because once again this
week many of us will come together through running to suffer on a run, but also to share our
lives together.
The technical term to describe me would be a Highly
Sensitive Person, which basically means I have tons of feelings, so to me a lot
of this stuff is extra special/emotional because of what this group means to
me. When I moved to MD, my wife and I
had no one we knew down here and this amazing group of runners took us in and
became such a big part of our lives and helped us get started down here. There was no trial period, none of the woman
didn’t talk to my wife because she didn’t run, it was immediate love and
wanting to get to know us. Even as my family
has grown by 1 my daughter has been embraced by this group like she is just
another member of a growing family. We
fight like any family, we all don’t always get along but we all share the same
love for what we have created and what we want to see continue to do good for many
years. And I know deep down all of us
know how special it is to have an opportunity to be a part of something like this
because 10-15 years down the road we might regret not having it if it is gone. And I think it's important once in a while to take a step back and acknowledge that. I wish everyone is lucky enough to be a part
of Squad like this at some point in their lives.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post and if you have any questions
or comments don’t hesitate to share with me.
Look for me over at the Believeintherun.com website in the coming weeks
as I take my talents to the Shoe Review world.
Hopefully with positive feedback I won’t be kicked off the site the
first day!
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