#43: NYC Marathon
One of the things I love most about running marathons is that moment at the beginning when we are lined up and I look around at the many other participants and I “know” the determination that has allowed them to be so disciplined and have such exertion to do the training required. It is hard to just “show” up for a marathon. It calls for re-orienting life and thinking that all the re-orienting is a great thing.
That moment of shared respect feels so so good to be involved in and I wish that it wouldn’t merely be completed several hours later.
I think the collective consciousness Lauren speaks of below makes marathon day in New York the best day of the year.
I would LOVE if you or a dear friend would love to run the New York City Marathon this fall with Restore to reach out to Lauren (lauren@restorenyc.org) or me. There is a somewhat short window for Restore to sign people up who would enjoy the marathon and in doing so be a bridge so that others might sponsor not you but sponsor Restore and their sensational energy toward helping survivors of sex traffic. You can join in some of the best of our humanity as it works to overcome some of the very worst of humanity.
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Lauren Culbertson lauren@restorenyc.org
I started running when I was a freshman in college. And once I started, I couldn’t stop.
When I moved to Chicago for school, I started running along Lake Michigan as a substitute for the competitive tennis I once played, but soon began to appreciate the solitude. Being an introvert on a social campus exhausted me and running became my surefire way to get some alone time with my music every morning. I quickly became addicted.
Later my freshman year, I decided to run the Chicago marathon, my first major race. Right before I crossed that finish line, I struggled to run not because of pain, but because I found the cheering, joyful crowds of strangers so beautiful I couldn’t help but cry. It absolutely blew my mind that tens of thousands of people would stand in the October cold to encourage people they didn’t know at all, and that competitors on the course ran with the mentality of “we are all in this together, and you got this.” Durkheim’s sociological concept of “collective effervescence” comes to mind – that kind of unifying energy you feel with strangers we’ve all felt at a concert, a religious gathering, or after a major tragedy.
Last year, I ran the New York marathon on Restore NYC’s team, which took this feeling of “collective effervescence” to another level. In fundraising, we often talk about donating as being so much more than a transfer between giver and receiver: it’s a collective effort to create change we want to see as a community. In the months leading up to the race, I reached out to friends and family asking that they donate to Restore’s anti-sex trafficking programs. This type of fundraising is unique because it is so interconnected and symbiotic – the donors, the runners, and the woman who engage with Restore’s services all need each other. We all want each other to win.
Running the marathon, I felt the presence of everyone who had played a role in Restore's marathon campaign. A true sense of solidarity, an alignment in "freedom from slavery" as the ultimate goal, and I had the absolute honor of physically carrying that goal on all's behalf for 26.2 miles. Running is inherently a solidarity sport. On a regular day, it’s just you against the clock. But come a test of endurance, and running becomes perhaps the most the collective, heart-tugging sport there is.
Lauren's first-person bio:
Someone once told me that I "move" when I see the “earth out of alignment,” which is just a fancy way of saying that I’ve always had a natural inclination to pay attention to what happens in the margins; that’s where the most exciting things happen, after all. That brought me to Restore NYC, an anti- sex trafficking nonprofit, where I work to inspire generosity and help our fundraising team make data-driven decisions. I experience the most joy in my work when I witness two things clicking inside someone: sex trafficking is a major issue that is closer than we think, but it has a solution that we can all be a part of.