Becoming a Sustainable Runner: A Guide to Running for Life, Community, and Planet

I share this story because it illustrates some of the many barriers that prevent people from being able to participate in the nutrition and climate decisions we make every day. While making sure we do our best to eat in a way that aligns with our climate values is important, the benefit is negligible if we fail to address, through comprehensive pol

While stress has a bad reputation, our human response to stress was actually developed as a survival mechanism to prepare us to fight, flee, or freeze. However, our brains have not yet evolved to understand that sending the wrong text to a friend or trying to speak Spanish in la panadería in Seville is not, in fact, a risk to our life. Our brain ca

It’s important to differentiate between your why and your goals. Your why may help inform your goals, and your goals may be a way to express your why, but they aren’t the same thing. Goals should not be your primary focus, and ideally your why should help you engage with your long-term goals more meaningfully and sustainably.

The advice given in this chapter alerts us to the ways our body tries to warn us, but we have to be ready to accept the message, and that requires slowing down long enough to hear it. The next time we compare ourselves to someone and get a sinking feeling in our stomach or a tightness in our chest as envy rises up, we must catch ourselves. How is i

Bracy believes you can both accept where you are and hope to grow. “So instead of thinking of it as ‘bettering yourself,’ I like to think of it as committing to personal values such as the desire to grow, learn more, work hard, etc. When you look at it that way, you’re not seeking this destination of a future version of yourself but instead committ

The hedonic treadmill is the idea that our happiness is calibrated to a baseline, no matter what we do or what happens to us. When we finally win that race, get that promotion, or land that book deal, our happiness will temporarily spike, but will quickly return to a set point. We then readjust our expectations to match the status quo of our experi

Apparel brand Tracksmith came up with a smart way to encourage runners to reuse pins by providing four gold pins with every Van Cortlandt racing singlet sold and a dedicated patch in one corner for the pins to reside between races.

Remove Ourselves From Conversations About Someone’s Body This one can be tough and can make some interactions awkward, but it will have an impact on us and may also inspire others to rethink their effect on conversations. When we contribute to or stay in conversations that are based on judgments of other people or judgments of ourselves, we are rei

Gratitude can be a powerful antidote to feeling stuck on the hedonic treadmill. Paying attention to what you are experiencing in the moment, and savoring the enjoyment of a specific experience beyond its outcome, can attach meaning to different aspects of an activity. Rather than trying to exceed 20 miles on a four-hour trail run, refusing to “wast

Your journey through this book will take you through three major sections. You will begin by developing and deepening your relationship to running to make it a healthy, reliable, lifelong friend who is always in your corner. Next, you will solidify your role in shaping the running communities you engage in and will find meaningful ways to give back