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The great hunkering down caused by COVID has been an especially tough pill to swallow for the global running community, a vibrant, passionate collective who are at their happiest while in motion. But good things come to runners who wait.
MORNING BREW
CREATIVE STUDIO
August 9, 2021
Runners Sprint Back to the Starting Line
“The amount of energy that’s returned [to the community] has been equal to if not greater than the highest inflection points in the past.”
The uninitiated think of running as a solitary pursuit, ideal for the quarantined existence. But for community-centric runners like Finley and Stanley-Dottin, the opposite is true. While some runners pound out miles solo, many others have organized their running lives around track clubs, running groups, and teams.
More like family
On the brink of an unprecedented marathon season, we sat down with two renaissance runners to discuss training, community, and how anyone can benefit from both.
With pandemic restrictions lifting worldwide, an unprecedented wave of marathons is set to break over the world’s roads, from the most famous races to local mainstays. New York, Boston, Paris, London, Berlin, Washington D.C., and Chicago will all host tens of thousands of runners this fall.
Erica Stanley-Dottin (Tracksmith / Shawn Pridgen)
So as runners prepare to toe starting lines once again, the running gurus and expert gear-smiths at Tracksmith hooked us up with two seasoned vets: Brooklyn Track Club Head Coach and Tracksmith Community Manager Steve Finley and runner and producer Erica Stanley-Dottin. They went deep on training for marathons post-COVID, their lifelong running journeys, the community bouncing back stronger than ever, and why now is the time for everyone to download a training plan, invest in chic and breathable running gear like Tracksmith to carry you through the summer and fall seasons, and get out there.
Steve Finley (Tracksmith / Emily Maye)
These communities are more like family, really. Finley told us about two couples who met in one of his relatively small marathon training groups. As first time marathoners, he watched them fall in love with the marathon journey, but also each other: both couples are now married. Stanley-Dottin—who runs for the club Black Roses NYC and grew up running in Brooklyn before becoming nationally renowned at Georgetown—worked so closely with her coach while a teenager that she considers them “a third parent.”
So when the world went into lockdown, runners in these communities were at a loss. “There was a lot of anxiety,” says Finley. “Should we be running in masks? Should we be running in groups? Should we be running at all?”
Meanwhile, Stanley-Dottin found herself at something of a crossroads, one which challenged not only her identity as a runner, but also a professional, a parent, and a person. She typically weaves a rigorous training routine into her daily schedule, which already includes a full-time job and getting two kids to different schools and after-school programs; one could imagine that cutting group training out of her schedule might actually help her life.
Soon she discovered, however, that having training sessions on the books forced her to approach her work and family obligations with more discipline and gratitude. After cutting back to almost no running in response to the lockdown, she decided to up her solo volume, and by the winter of 2021, she was at 70 miles per week and dreaming of running her first London marathon.
Erica Stanley-Dottin (Tracksmith / Shawn Pridgen)
Perhaps the only thing more impressive than the number of marathons on the calendar is the community’s current appetite for serious mileage. “Everyone’s jockeying to see how many [marathons] they can do,” Finley tells us.
A community rediscovers its identity
Erica Stanley-Dottin, left (Tracksmith / Shawn Pridgen)
Newbies are breaking into the sport with a similar enthusiasm. Finley guesses that 20 to 25% of his current runners at Brooklyn Track Club have joined after pandemic restrictions began to ease, and he says that Brooklyn running stores have been doing unusually good business of late.
As Finley describes what the running scene is like this summer, he can’t help but crack a smile: “The amount of energy that’s returned [to the community] has been equal to, if not greater than, the highest inflection points in the past.”
For both Finley and Stanley-Dottin, the rewards of choosing the running life seem to have nothing to do with trophies or huge markers. Over the course of our interviews, each of them brings the conversation back to the beauty, satisfaction, and sense of community that comes with committing oneself to long journeys—whether that means one Sunday run or an extended training schedule.
“My biggest piece of advice to anybody is to join a team. Find a group to run with, even if it’s one person,” Finley says. “You’re more likely to be accountable to that goal—and, more importantly, to the person.”
The benefits extend beyond training. “Having people who are on this journey with me...There’s nothing like that community,” says Stanley-Dottin. Finley adds that, “If you go [to a club] with one friend, you’ll suddenly find you have five more.”
Speaking with Finley and Stanley-Dottin, it’s obvious why runners talk about their community with such fervor: The positive energy is infectious. By the end of the interviews, we found ourselves struggling to maintain any semblance of professionalism. If we’re being honest, we wanted to close our laptops, head outside, and start running.
(Tracksmith / Emily Maye)
A former sprinter, Erica Stanley-Dottin ran her first marathon in 2008 after downloading a training plan online. While she gets ready for her seventh this fall, we’re making it easy for you to follow in her footsteps with this training plan developed by Coach Steve Finley himself.
The uninitiated think of running as a solitary pursuit—ideal for the quarantined existence. But for community-centric runners like Finley and Stanley-Dottin, the opposite is true.
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"My biggest piece of advice to anybody is to join a team."
Reflecting on the hectic past few years of her life, Stanley-Dottin sums up what it means to be running marathons again: “I feel like I’ve come back into myself. I feel like I can be Erica again.”
These communities are more like family, really. Finley told us about two couples who met in one of his relatively small marathon training groups. As first time marathoners, he watched them fall in love with the marathon journey, but also each other: both couples are now married.