One Nation Running Together: National Running Day, Pt. 1

Though not a psychic, I have a sense that this coming Wednesday, June 3rd, is going to be a very busy day. Busy but full of celebrations throughout this country. Beginning just seconds after midnight, I begin the day-long celebration of my birth. 30 years old, 6 years a runner and almost a whole year as a married fellow. However, though my birthday is certainly cause for celebration, it is certainly not one of national importance. Wednesday also marks National Fist-Bump Day. One year ago on Wednesday, with then-Senator-now-President Barack Obama having just secured the Democratic nomination for President and having taken the stage for the first time as the Democratic nominee, his wife, instead of giving the typical politician's wife's bipartisan congratulatory hug, balled her hand into a fist and touched it to Senator Obama's similarly fisted hand. Despite the Secret Service's initial instincts that Lady Obama was about to attack the Democratic nominee and the Service's engaging in Def-con defensive maneuvers, the fist-bump quickly became the new symbol of greeting throughout America and the world over. Once again, however, like my birthday National Fist-Bump Day is sure to cause much celebration for many Americans but is not an event of such national proportions to make it newsworthy in-and-of itself.

On the other hand, there is a third event on June 3rd that not only will be celebrated from the lakes of Minnesota to the hills of Tennessee, across the plains of Texas, from sea to shining sea, from Detroit down to Houston and from New York to L.A. but will also bring Americans together in a common cause with a common passion. Beginning at 4:30am in Creswell, Oregon and ending at around 9pm in Boardman, Ohio, the inaugural National Running Day will offer running events of all varieties to all people and will mark the day when Americans stood up to laziness, chubbiness and bad health and collectively said, "You're too slow for this country!!!"

It wasn't too long ago when the United States Track and Field Association announced the creation of National Running Day (in fact, I wrote about it in a post following that announcement). Since that announcement on April 1st, National Running Day has gone from being a day celebrating the vague notion of promoting "running as a healthy, easy, and accessible form of exercise. Across the country, the day will celebrate the benefits of running as part of a healthy and active lifestyle aimed at combating some of today's most pressing health issues" to a day of countless running events in over 18 states and has gained enormous popularity among runners and non-runners alike. Like July 4th is to America, Thanksgiving is to succulent turkeys and Halloween is to ghosts, National Running Day gives thanks to those who ran before us and those that established running as the most awesome form of activity; an activity open to anyone who wants to partake in it.

In Georgia, Governor Sonny Perdue will issue Atlanta Track Club executive director Tracey Russell a proclamation declaring June 3rd National Running Day in Georgia. In Houston, Mayor Bill White will officially proclaim June 3rd Houston Running Day at a City Council meeting on June 2nd. And, in Minnesota, Governor Tim Pawlenty and Mayor RT Rybak of Minneapolis and Chris Coleman of St. Paul will sign state and city proclamations announcing June 3rd as Minnesota Running Day.

Rather than a day of passive remembrance, National Running Day obligates us to be active not for a brief moment but throughout the day. From running in a planned event, to actually being able to create your own event to simply going for your daily run (or runs in my case), there are an almost infinite number of ways to get involved and to show your appreciation and support.

Acknowledging both the grandeur of National Running Day and our generally low attention spans, I have opted to run (no pun intended) my first multi-part post to more accurately and completely describe the efforts that went into the planning and organizing of day as well as to highlight many of the signature events around the country. Rather than a single governing body, National Running Day was the collaborative initiative of many of the major running organizations in America, including the Atlantic Track Club, the Boston Athletic Association, the Chevron Houston Marathon, the Chicago Area Runners Association, the Competitor Group, the Little Rock Marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon, New York Road Runners, the Oregon Track Club, Running USA, Twin Cities Marathon, Inc., and USA Track & Field. As may be evident, this first part will serve as a broad overview of National Running Day while the other two parts will get into the 'nitty gritty' as we say.

On Monday, I will discuss the efforts of half of the organizing organizations described above and, on Tuesday, I will discuss the efforts of the other half as well as mention some of the more interesting events planned and what I, in particular, have planned for this momentous event.

As a person born on June 3rd, a person who loves to do fist-bumps with my dopeness wife CVSW (though we prefer the so-called 'belly bump') and, most importantly, a person who loves running, I am especially excited for June 3rd, 2009. While I have not heard of employers giving their employees the day off to participate in any number of the running events that will be offered, one can still hope for the future. As we are the generation who probably takes the origins of Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day for granted, we are also the generation that will be able to tell our children, grand children and great-grand children that we were alive for the inaugural National Running Day. A day where we joined our friends, acquaintances and those whom we did not know and, for just that day, became a family.

100 years from now, scholars will most likely be writing books about the day Americans woke up as individuals and ran away as a unified country of one.