“A life is not important except in the impact it makes in others’ lives.” – Jackie Robinson
I’ve not really taken the time to introduce who I am and how the Runnin’ Not Walken team and Runners Doing Good blog and instagram pages came to be so I thought I’d do a bit of an Intro Friday to go down that road if you’d allow me.
First off, long distance running was the farthest thing from my mind. I tried it for a week or so in high school and I was sick nearly every night so I quit it and joined up with the sprinters and long jumpers. I wasn’t good at either thing but when I graduated from high school, I was in the best shape of my life from a speed, fitness, agility, etc. standpoint that it was ridiculous. That all said, I didn’t run anything of distance for a long time
I decided in 2015 that I needed to get in better shape and I saw someone’s twitter post about Ragnar Relay. I thought it was fascinating so I did what any good friend does and drug a couple friends and several family members into it. I thought that if I could pull that off that I would be in great shape. That was the thought at least. I’m in better shape than then but overall, it’s been a bit of a roller coaster.
After some conversations with a cousin on the team, we decided to support a charity along the way. It was an incredible idea and we leaned into. We’ve raised more than $17,000 since 2015. Runnin’ Not Walken, has exceeded expectations continually and I truly look forward to the next step. NeighborLink Fort Wayne is a fantastic partner and I really am looking forward to participating in some of their running events.
Runners Doing Good evolved through a donor of RNW’s. I think it has more potential than what it’s doing currently doing and if it were given the opportunity to grow, I think it could go big. I truly do. My ultimate dream for it would be that we could bring people together, inspired by a runner or runner’s cause and support it both from an exposure stand-point but a financial one too.
It has been a true blessing to be able to feature different runners and tell their stories. In a negative world, it’s shown me that there’s a lot to be inspired by and that people have a ton of good in them.
I want to continue to do that, making an impact for the runners we feature but also affecting charitable groups through the team’s running, and do this with people I appreciate and care about. Life is a crazy adventure…do it with those that matter most and that’s why I’ve always chose people like that for the RNW team.
On the near horizon, Runnin’ Not Walken has a matching promotion for May 1st and Runners Doing Good is going to feature soon the biggest name in running we’ve ever had and I think both of those events will be impactful.
For me personally, I am running the Indy Min in May and it still scares me a bit but I have a good group of folks that are encouraging me and I look forward to tackling this monster of a challenge ahead of me. There’s a lot that could go wrong but a lot that’s worth being proud about so I’m going for it.
So that’s me and how I got here, what I’m looking forward to, and how I see the blog and team evolving. The future is bright and I’m proud to be a small part of it.
If you’d like to know more, leave me a note in the comments or you can email some questions to runnersdoinggood@yahoo.com.
Thanks!
Gabe
Runners Doing Good 