The Long Run: Talking with Our Black Friends about Allyship

Running Life: A Fitness Protection Production

You’ve probably heard it said that “running is therapy.” Though we push back HARD against that idea, therapy is our therapy and nothing else comes close, we can see where this comes from.

We see our running buddies every Saturday, more frequently than we see anyone else. My running buddies know a LOT about me, yet most of them have never met my colleagues, my coworkers, my spouse or my friends outside the running community. They exist totally separately.

I tell you that to tell you THIS: conversations can get DEEP on long runs. The lack of connection to the rest of our lives means we can be more ourselves, speak more freely, talk more candidly. This is why a long run can be a safe place to ask dangerous questions. What is said on a run, stays on a run...so we thought it would be fun to host some of these free, TMI conversations on the podcast, covering topics as well as details that wouldn’t be appropriate to share anywhere else.

Current events have been rather dramatic, and for many people, surprising. That fact alone is harmful, racism isn’t new, neither is police brutality- my dad has been specializing in this area of law since 1973. You don’t make friends doing this work, suing cops...I’ve never been able to call the police. They wouldn’t come to our house. We chose this….most people don’t. Specifically, communities of color didn’t choose this.

For everyone else, we’ve been raised to believe that the police keep us safe. Our worst experience may have been a cop who bullied us at a traffic stop or incompetence in investigating a burglary, which underscores our privilege: it wasn’t a problem, because it wasn’t OUR problem. We as a nation are finally coming to understand that we have a very big problem indeed and aren’t sure what the best next step looks like.

In the second installment of this series, we are bringing in three FPP employees, who happen to be Black, to answer all of the questions we have about what to do right now.

• Nikkia Young is the Coach of our Build Program
• Lovey Roundtree-Oliff is the Coach of our ReBuild Program
• Dalia Kinsey is our Chief Nutrition Officer

For a deeper look into these issues, please subscribe to The Pod Caste, hosted by Coach Lovey, and check out Dalia’s recent anti-bias training.