FEATURES

Bicycling| Dec 24, 2024 | dispatch

On a beautiful late-summer ride under a cerulean blue sky, I got my second flat in three days. 

As luck would have it, I was 20 miles from my Eastern Pennsylvania home with no repair kit. What made me even more upset was that the ride was going so well: For the first time in weeks, my legs were not aching as soon as I woke up, because I had finally allowed myself to take a few rest days after overdoing my half-marathon training. 

As I started pushing my bike along the shoulderless road toward the closest town, I couldn’t shake the thought that I had jinxed my bike by recently boasting about never getting a flat before. Well deserved. A couple of cyclists coming from the opposite direction crossed the road to ask if I was okay. They were sorry they didn’t have a spare tube—as if my not having one was somehow their fault. I began contemplating whether I could convince an Uber driver to take not only my sweaty self but also my bike rather than bother any of my friends to pick me up. 

Runner’s World | Oct 21, 2024 | dispatch

Before I fell for running, I thought the hardest thing about the sport was the fast stuff: the speedwork, the  sprints, and the  intervals.

And I do find that running fast—making my lungs beg for air, feeling my heart pounding all the way in my ears, and pushing my legs to their limits—is indeed hard. Some days nearly impossible. But no: Turns out, the hardest thing about running is keeping the  easy miles easy.

The irony is not lost on me that, somehow, breathing evenly enough to be able to talk while running, keeping my heartbeat under control, and moving my legs only to the point where they feel comfortable with the effort can be considered a challenge at all. 

Runner’s World | May 3, 2024 | as-told-to first-person essay

I think of running as a supportive best friend who has helped me through so much and is always there for me. But I also argue with it and sometimes get mad or frustrated and need a break. When it gets really hard, I think about Crew, my son who passed away, looking down on me and being proud. That keeps me going. In the end, as complicated as it can be, my relationship with running has given me a lot. That’s what a best friend does, I suppose. That’s what love is.

Runner’s World | May 2, 2024 | as-told-to first-person essays

Have you ever heard that running makes people happier? There is science behind it, proving that the hormones released during and following a run positively affect various aspects of your mental wellness. Especially in tandem with a treatment plan, running can also work marvels in helping support mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, and several others.

Many people use running to ease the tension in their bodies, get their minds out of a dark place, and lift their mood. In connection with the launch of The Runner’s World Guide to Mental Health and Mental Health Awareness Month, RW asked you, everyday runners, to share personal stories about life’s unexpected curveballs, encountering loss and grief, dealing with dark thoughts, and battling negative emotions.

Here’s how running has helped eight runners cope and supported their mental health.

Runner’s World | May 13, 2024 | dispatch

I Need a (Drink) Run

To keep the cold at bay one December night in 2022, my friend Justine and I got together for some mulled wine, a hot drink as delicious as it is sentimental to me, reminding me of holiday gatherings and Christmas markets back home in the Czech Republic. As the familiar sweet smell of star anise, cloves, cinnamon, and lemon filled my apartment, I declared out loud (more to myself than to Justine) that I had a 10-mile run on my  training plan the next day, so I needed to take the night easy.

I was training for a 30K run on my 30th birthday, my longest distance to date, so I wanted to be  rested and  hydrated. Three cups of mulled wine later, I woke up from a short doze at 3 a.m. with a  headache, just to helplessly stare at the ceiling until falling back asleep sometime in the early morning hours, swearing to myself I would never drink again. Tale as old as time.

Bicycling| Dec 22, 2022 | as-told-to first-person essay

I learned about the Trans America Trail in college from a friend who had done it back in 2015. He was a year below me and at one point, he took a semester off to do this cross-country tour of more than 4,000 miles. I followed him on social media and was shocked, thinking, “You can just ride your bike across the country?” He does photography, too, so he was taking these incredible photos. His journey stuck with me—though I didn’t have an actual plan to do the same until recently.

I’ve always ridden bikes leisurely, never competitively. I learned to ride when I was 3 years old. Growing up, we would ride bikes around the neighborhood with friends. We’d ride to a local Wendy’s without telling our parents, even though it was maybe half a mile up the road. It was fun. I always owned a bike.

The Temple News| May 20, 2020 | feature

Liz Moore’s new novel, “Long Bright River,” was already a national success before it hit bookshelves, becoming a New York Times bestseller, getting praised by The Washington Post, and being selected as a book club pick for Good Morning America. 

Following the book’s release, the crew of Good Morning America visited Moore, a Temple University English professor, in Philadelphia and aired a video of her taking a reporter for a ride around Kensington, Philadelphia, where the story is set.

“Long Bright River,” Moore’s fourth novel, was published in the United States on Jan. 7 and will be translated to 15 languages, she said.

Runner’s World | Sept 5, 2024 | service

Earlier this spring, my 10-mile race and my period were scheduled to arrive on the same day. Every 28 (or so) days since my teenage years, I’ve found myself curled up in pain on the bathroom floor on the first day of my  menstrual cycle, so the prospect of me actually having to run during that time caused nothing short of panic.

What added to my worries was that while some runners find relief in movement when they get their period, in my case it exacerbates it. On numerous occasions, I have had to stop my run or my visit to the gym in the hours leading up to the first (and usually worst) day of my period, just to cry in pain on my way home where I’d find temporary relief in a bath filled with nearly boiling water.

Runner’s World | May 14, 2024 | as-told-to first-person essay

The shooting began during Jason Aldean’s concert. It was the third and last night of the festival—October 1, 2017. If I could go back, do the whole weekend over again, and just change the ending, I absolutely would.

Before the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, I had never been to an open-air festival. I saw the headliners, including Jason Aldean (my favorite), and immediately thought there was no better place than Las Vegas for my first event like this. I got to drink, gamble, hang out at the pools, and listen to music. My kind of a party!

I was there with my childhood best friend of 40 years, Joe. We were having a great time until, on Sunday, the popping noises began. It first sounded like firecrackers, but then the musicians started throwing down their instruments and running, followed by everyone in the audience. It all happened so fast. Joe and I got separated in the chaos. Then I felt the shot. Like a hot knife cutting through butter. It left two holes in my right leg. One on the side where the bullet came in and one up front where the bullet left.

Runner’s World | Nov 3, 2022 | feature

It’s Never Too Late to Start Running. This Power Couple Is a Proof.

Autumn in Massachusetts is often wet and chilly, but the weather in Westfield on that second Saturday in October last year was a runner’s dream: not too cold, not too warm, and just the right amount of clouds without rain. It was a perfect day for a race, and this one was years in the making.

That morning, Ana Nunez and Art Demas laced up in the parking lot of the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail, secured bibs to their shorts, and turned on their racing apps to track their first-ever marathon: the virtual 2021  Boston Marathon.

Equipped with water, jelly beans, and pretzels, the partners took off at around 8 a.m, each running their own race, as Art insisted. He didn’t want to hold back Ana, the faster of the two. During most races, Ana usually disregarded Art’s encouragement, since she likes to cross the finish line with him. But this was their first marathon, so she obliged.

Runner’s World | Oct 11, 2022 | as-told-to first-person essay 

I started running about seven years ago. My uncle passed that year, so I thought running would be a good way for me to honor him. He was a loving and supportive pastor. Growing up, he always encouraged and motivated us. In 2017, some family members and I decided to do our first run in Shiprock, New Mexico, in his honor. That was my first half marathon. Ever since then, I made the commitment to continue to run in honor of him, my ancestors, and my well-being.

My mother is Navajo and my father is Tohono O’odham. I’m half and half. Where I come from, running is falling into the steps of our ancestors. My grandfather was a long-distance runner. Back then, that’s how we passed messages from one community to another. Where I put my footprints, that’s where my ancestors ran. Running is in our blood, it’s our Himdag—our culture. We run to the east before sunrise and we let the Creator know that we are awake with him. We run for those who can’t. I take the stories I hear from the elderly in the nation with me when I’m running, and I pray out there, asking our Creator to protect our land, to heal our bodies.

The Temple News| May 20, 2020 | opinion

David Tuck sat in front of a computer screen at the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center in Northeast Philadelphia, ready to share the story of his early life once again, as he has been doing several times a week for more than 40 years.

“What I am gonna tell you today, I don’t believe it myself,” he said to a classroom of more than a dozen children on the other side of the screen in Hollywood, California. 

Tuck was born in 1929 in Poland, where the Jewish population before World War II accounted for more than three million people, Time reported.

“Three million two hundred thousand didn’t make it back,” he said. “I was one of the lucky ones.”

Colaborative Journalism| May 24, 2019 | commentary

The conference room that was empty, quiet and still just minutes ago is now crammed with more than a hundred people. The space is filled with buzzing conversation, laughter, and the sound of clinking glasses. The smell of warm pastries and grilled chicken fills the air. Humidity. But mostly a great time.

One of the attendees separates herself from the crowd and sneaks into a smaller conference room in search for a plug to charge her phone. This room is much quieter, with only Heather Bryant speaking and demonstrating Project Facet, a service she founded to help manage and coordinate the work of collaboration.

Within seconds, the attendee seems to forget why she came to the room in the first place, and instead starts paying attention to Bryant, curiously taking in every word, listening to the possibilities that the service could mediate in the future.

This summit is all about collaboration, after all.