Central Park Running

Era of ……………………WTF…………………..joy and resistance

I'm in New York for our annual American Sociological Association conference. This year's theme is disrupting the status quo, and I organized a session about the power of storytelling — fitting, given how many sociological narratives still need to be told. The panelists who said yes are total rock stars. I'll admit I was a bit of a fan girl going in, since I'd already read all of their work.

I couldn't come to New York and talk about storytelling without doing some running myself. I'd planned on running three days while I was here, but it was hotter than balls, so I only managed it once — in Central Park.

There were so many people running early Sunday morning that it was genuinely exciting to see. They were running along Ted Corbitt Way( the pioneer black male long distance runner), and I loved that there was a nod to a Black runner in that space.

As I ran, I noticed how different it felt compared to running along the Esplanade in Boston, or even through Franklin Park in Roxbury. The part of Central Park I ran in — near Times Square — seemed to be a mix of locals and tourists. I could pick out the running groups who clearly had this as their regular routine. But I also noticed the whiteness of the space. I know there are Black and brown running crews out there — in Brooklyn, in Harlem — and I assumed they just didn't run down here. Shame on me for not reaching out to any of those crews before I left. I wasn't sure how busy the conference would keep me, so I didn't plan ahead.

In the end, I ran like a tourist: taking in the people, the sights, the miles. Two miles inside the park, plus a mile there and a mile back — four miles total for my Central Park run. I'll take the win.

I know the NYC Marathon is coming later this fall. The thought of 50,000-plus people running through the city and finishing in Central Park was a hard no for me. It wasn't like the time I ran in Paris on an SSU spring break trip, when I felt so inspired I wanted to come back and run the Paris Marathon. NYC just didn't have that same pull.

But I ran — once, the only run of the whole trip. What I did do a hell of a lot of was walking. My body was moving. A lot