What I Learned During My Anti-Trump Running Streak
Nearly four years ago, along with a good friend, I embarked on an “anti-Trump” run streak. Angry at the election results, we pledged to run every single day until Trump was impeached or otherwise removed from office. The idea was that we would run at least one mile every single day, rain or shine, snow or sleet. Given Trump’s history of atrocious behavior, we didn’t think our streak would last long. Surely he would be impeached within months.
And so we ran, and we kept running. Though a mile a day was our minimum, most days we ran between 4–6 miles. In every kind of weather, and usually at 5:30 in the morning to accommodate our busy work schedules and families. As trail runners, we spent nearly all of our time on dark trails, lit only by our headlamps. Our dogs accompanied us on our runs, and no run was complete without a porcupine quilling or moose sighting. When one or the other of us was traveling, we’d run in cities across the country and around the world. We did crazy things like get up at 3:30 am to run on the hotel treadmill before an early morning flight. On the occasion when the hotel didn’t have a treadmill, we’d brave the city streets alone, just to get a mile of running in. We ran outside when it was -20 and with snow up to our knees. We ran when it was 85 or 90 degrees, swatting at the biting black flies that arrived every June. We ran 30+ mile ultramarathons and then got up the next morning to run a mile, despite barely being able to sit down in a chair without assistance.
While conversations in the early months of the running streak focused on Trump and his near-daily assault on policies and programs designed to protect humans or the environment, our conversations eventually became broader, partly out of self-preservation. It became untenable to begin each morning with a laundry list of everything he had done in the day prior to destroy the country. Each day became a new day of horrors, with each action or word more unbelievable and despicable than the one prior. Our conversations turned instead to more personal issues of women’s leadership and the struggle to gain respect in academic and government environments. We also spoke of our daughters, their shared passion for swimming, and our hopes for them in a future world. I’d be lying if I didn’t also admit to a healthy amount of gossip and eye-rolling regarding friends, family and acquaintances.
Months turned into years. Our beliefs that the run streak would be short-lived were erased. Instead, migrant families were separated at the border. Children were placed in cages. Climate accords were abandoned. Brett Kavanaugh was added to the Supreme Court, despite gut-grenching testimony from Christine Blasey Ford. Parts of the Affordable Care Act were dismantled. The Keystone oil pipeline was approved through Indigenous territories. A Muslim travel ban was enacted. Elizabeth Warren was called Pocahontas. Sanctuary cities were penalized for protecting migrants. Transgender students were prohibited from using the bathroom of their choice. Haiti and El Salvador were called shithole countries. The threat of COVID-19 was downplayed. Masks were discouraged. More than a quarter of million people died from Covid.
Still, he made it through four years of his Presidency. In fact, he outlasted me, as I am no longer running.
One day last summer, more than 1200 days into my anti-Trump running streak, I noticed my knee was swollen. I didn’t remember injuring it in any specific way, so I assumed it would eventually get better on its own. When the swelling continued after several months and I could no longer bend my knee, I consulted a sports medicine doctor. She and I sat and looked at my knee MRI together, and she pointed to a very thin, narrow white line, and told me that’s where my cartilage used to be. Apparently with more than 1200 days of running, that cartilage had worn so thin that my knee could no longer support daily running. I told her of my anti-Trump run streak and all the days I had left. She looked at me carefully and said: “I’m afraid your running days are over.”
I remember sitting with friends in a restaurant later that evening, crying as I absorbed this news. The anti-Trump running streak was the biggest thing I had ever done to stand up for something I believed in. With each passing day, month, and year, I was proud of my resolve. While I knew that my streak had no direct impact on Trump himself, I felt like I was making a difference. With each daily run, I recommitted to my opposition to a man who had destroyed so many lives, and who had made so many people feel insignificant and unimportant. I was standing up to a man who was a liar, and cared only about himself and not about this country.
Despite 1200+ days of running, I felt like a failure. As a retired running junkie, I had to look for other outdoor activities that I would enjoy. I drove to North Dakota and mountain biked the Maah Daah Hey trail. I started meeting friends in the afternoons for hikes. I replaced my long weekend runs with a hike with my dogs at my favorite lake. I bought a gravel bike and began to enjoy biking through the beautiful farmlands of western Massachusetts.
My friend is still running, and in a few weeks, she’ll have run the entire four years of his Trump’s presidency. I’m proud of her and am in deep awe and admiration that she kept running all these years. I know what it takes to get up and run every day, in all kinds of weather, when you are inspired and when you are not. Most people can’t imagine running 7 days in a row let alone every day for four years. I deeply wish I would not have failed in this challenge we set ourselves up for, but I am deeply grateful for our friendship and for having somebody to meet in the early dawn hours to share these hard years with. You’d be surprised how much personal resolution and redemption happens in the dark when you can unload your most raw, unpopular, and sometimes ugly feelings out for others to hear. If anything positive came out of these Trump years, it’s that we’ve learned how much we need our friends.
Still, I often wonder if I would do it again. In many ways, it feels like I sacrificed my knee to oppose a President who is a narcissistic sociopath. With my family history of arthritis, there is little doubt that I would have eventually been headed to a knee replacement without three years of daily running, but how far off would that day have been? Could I have gotten another 10 years of running in a few days a week? After being a runner for the better part of 30 years, my running days have come to an end.
But, the lessons I learned from my anti-Trump run steak were valuable nonetheless. First, I learned that friendship is more important than anything, and having a good friend to talk to makes weathering political storms easier. Second, as a female leader in the workplace, I also learned the importance of having another female leader to confide in and share leadership challenges with. I think women don’t connect with other women as leaders enough, and I know our leadership conversations were among the most helpful conversations we had over those years. Finally, I learned there are limitations to what the body can do. I started the streak in my mid-40’s, and ended it just before I turned 50. I hate to admit that my body can’t do what it might have been able to do in my 30s.
In the end, I blame Trump for my bum knee. I did all that I could over these past four years, but in the end, it’s my ballot that will matter most.
Here’s to better days ahead.
