Every week Night Terrors LA captain Aimee Laurel will be writing a post about running for all the grown ass women running out there. Lets do this: ++ POST UP, FLAWLESS No. 2 ++ Lead Position The further and further (literally and figuratively) I go with the Night Terrors, the more I understand the concept of the lead position. Did I ever tell you ladies the real story behind the Night Terrors? I wanted to become a graphic designer/illustrator a couple years ago. I would follow illustrators on Instagram that I liked to get immersed in the culture. You may know her as a part of the Undo-Ordinary crew but I followed Sophia Chang (@esymai) on IG because she was a rad designer. One night in April 2013 I was scrolling and she posted up a photo of her and her friends (among them Robyn Argon, @robinnyc, of whom I would later meet and thank, more on that later) all dressed in black, wearing headlamps. They had just bombed through 7 miles in Brooklyn. That lovely article in Canadian Running Magazine you may have read (on newsstands now, go grab it!) talked about the start of the crew and it reads like I straight up copied what I saw - but it goes deeper than that (can you copy fun?). More on that later too. I called up my girls Homa and Joanne who were down to run with me. I decided it would be hilarious to start an Instagram account for the team, complete with a logo. We ran a total of 4K (more than what I had ever ran since high school) to the Exhibition Place wind turbine and back. Pretty soon after a few photo posts we were getting random questions - “What’s your pace? “Can I join?” “What’s your mileage?” - Questions I had no idea how to answer (pace?) and pretty soon discovered that we were doing something that was fun enough that others wanted to join in too. People thought I was some sort of running junkie (I am and I’m not at the same time - I’m not the fastest, I just like running, and running with others, and getting other people to run… wait, maybe I am?) and or whatever they wanted to think I was (maybe that also has to do with being a woman? So many damn labels…). But what does this have to do with “lead position”? Well, let me ask you a question: since running, and posting in Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, wherever - have people come up and asked you about running? Have they asked you what it’s like? Have they asked you about running with you? Guys, I don’t know what it is about running that is terrifying on the outside and incredible rewarding on the inside but ever since I started to run I took that unplanned lead position in my life and people around me started to run too. It’s like that Marianne Williamson quote: “… as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” You, my dear reader and fellow runner, are taking the lead position whether you are aware of it or not. Those water cooler moments with your coworkers? They want to run - help them, show them, bring them to a Night Terrors run. It’ll be fun (we still got that going, even a year an a half later). Remember Sophia and Robin? I caught up with them at a shakeout run with the Orchard Street Runners during last year’s NYC marathon weekend. I went up to Sophia and introduced myself. I told her the story and she laughed. She at that time was dragged by Robin to that run and it was the longest she had ever ran before (and I totally forgot that she wrote in that Instagram post it was her first run EVER). She introduced me to Robin and recounted the tale. I thanked them both for inspiring the Night Terrors. Embrace the lead position. You don’t know where it’ll take you (and more importantly, the people around you) but it will get you somewhere. - Aimee
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 22:45:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015