Global Running Day: one new runner at a time!

Another belated post, 3 weeks have passed since this event occurred, time flies when you work hard while traveling around the world... even a few days of time off in Poland with the family didn't help! But, as the saying goes, better late than never, and for my own records at a minimum.

Global Running Day, yet another of these daily celebrations which we don't have enough days in a year to all fit! But what is it exactly?

We have to thank Wikipedia for so much information (not fake news!) made available at our finger prints. I've always liked the concept but didn't remember how many years it did... run! Here you are, it has been 9 years.

Global Running Day is a day that celebrates the sport of running. It is held annually on the first Wednesday of June.[1] Participants of all ages and abilities pledge to take part in some type of running activity by submitting their names through the Global Running Day website. Global Running Day 2018 is scheduled for June 6.
Global Running Day was formerly known as National Running Day and began in the United States. The first event was in 2009.
The inaugural Global Running Day was held on June 1, 2016. More than 2.5 million people from 177 countries pledged to run more than 9.2 million miles. New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, declared June 1, 2016 to be Global Running Day in the City of New York.[3] 2014 Boston Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi led a group run from the Boston Run Base,[4] and the Atlanta Track Club organized a “run around the clock” event, where at least one person from the Atlanta metro area would be running every hour of Global Running Day.

Last year I organized a celebration at the IBM location I'd Been Moved to (yes, being moved is something so frequent in our company that some people came up with this alternative acronym meaning a while ago...).

As a group we logged 306 miles on June 6, 2017 so I set the hefty goal of 400 miles this year. I'm not sure what happened this year, the weather wasn't even too hot, but we came up rather short with 211 miles this time.

Now, at the running clinic I organized, there were a handful of experienced runners, even one who knew Michael Wardian and Jim Wamsley (last week, Jim broke the Western States 100-mile course record with an amazing time of 14 hours and 30 minute, shaving off 15 minutes from the previous record, totally mind blowing!). [Photo credits: Henry Wang, IBM]

On the other end of the spectrum, there was a colleague whose husband has organized a trip to Patagonia at the end of the year. She wanted to get ready for this 6-day trek by getting back in shape and taking on running. Perfect timing and it was refreshing to get questions on these initial interrogations which every new runner has, such as breathing, stride, posture, pace, where to run, where to buy shoes and which shoes. Many of the things we take for granted after running for several years.

I ran along her for her first 1.5 miles, stopping twice to let her catch her breath and celebrating this key initial milestone.

I went back on our site 2.2-mile loop and ended up with 15 miles before having to rush to another meeting but very happy to have witnessed the birth of a new runner!

Hope you had a great celebration for that day yourself, 3 weeks ago, and looking forward to seeing the birth of many more runners before we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Global Running Day!