So here’s what I’m up to this week: the Womxn Run The Vote Relay! It’s requiring 5+ miles a day for each of these 7 days, and I’ll be honest, I haven’t done this kind of mileage in a while. I signed up for this a couple of months ago. I had time to prepare. Instead, I did everything exactly the same way, then I strained my abs last week and didn’t run the rest of the week. Like an idiot. 

However, the rest was probably the best thing for me before this week began because this experience is taking it all out of me in the best way possible. Having a purpose makes a world of difference. Having a concrete, external motivating factor is making the miles this week meaningful and, being real, easier. 

Let’s expand. It’s because I care about this. Voting seems like the most important thing a citizen of this country can do right now. Our leadership is a joke. There’s no federal guidance for stopping the spread of the coronavirus. The person in the Oval Office is eroding trust in normally stalwart government agencies, most notably the Post Office and the CDC. And underneath it all are racist policies. The whole system is set up as an attempt to keep lower-class white folks voting against their own economic self-interests to make people in power as much money as possible, and that is done by convincing lower-class white folks that they are inherently better than Black folks. President Lyndon Johnson once said, “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you,” (found in this NYTimes Opinion piece from 2018, but also found in many other sources).

Maybe you’re thinking, “Stick to the Momming and running posts.” Yeah, sometimes I think I should do that too. But this mom and runner is also a citizen of this country, and every part of our lives, including the running and the momming (running because of the virus; momming because of education) are going to be affected by this election. So vote.

This relay, which benefits Black Voters Matter, ties together running and spreading awareness in a way I would never have thought of on my own. I’m grateful for the opportunity to participate and learn some history along the way. On a less serious note, I am also loving the Spotify playlist by Sed The Saint made for this race!