Running From Trouble

Runner's World had another article on Anne Mahlum and her outreach running program called "Back on My Feet". It's worth a read.

Teaser:

The kitchen overlooked a forgotten block of 13th Street, with the occasional body sleeping under a blanket on the cracked sidewalks, trash blowing up the street from Chinatown. The foot traffic here was mostly confined to those loitering outside the shelter, which was why the sight of a pretty blond girl jogging down the street was enough to make Dorch and Hall set down their spatulas and take notice.

"What is she doing here?" Dorch asked.

"What is she thinking?" Hall followed.

"She's gotta be crazy."

"Or lost."

"Does she know where she is?"

The next day: same wrong neighborhood, same time, same pretty blond girl. Clearly, if she was here again, she wasn't lost, which narrowed down the possible explanations for her choice of running route considerably.

"That girl is crazy."

Crazy, and persistent. She kept coming, enough that the two men began to expect her, to look for her. And eventually, in a tradition dating back to the beginning of men and women themselves, they called out to her.

"Hey, Runner Girl! What are you doing here, Runner Girl?"

The story might have ended like that. A couple of men yelling at a pretty blond, a pretty blond running by and disappearing around the corner to go about her life. Dorch and Hall might have remained a couple of homeless guys, and Anne Mahlum might have remained just another Crazy Runner Girl, if not for what happened next: She smiled, and waved. . .

A few runs later, there was a "How you guys doing this morning?" And then on one run, a few steps past the shelter, a thought suddenly came to her: Why do I get to be the runner, and they have to be the homeless guys? Why can't we all just be runners?