One of my greatest fears growing up was that I would someday marry into a family that runs 5Ks on Thanksgiving. I could not think of a more miserable way to begin a holiday than by straining my non-runner body for 3.1 miles in the cold before the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade had even gotten up. I fought tooth and nail against the concept of running, even when my own family started training for marathons. Now, with Thanksgiving just around the corner, I can’t help but wonder why on Earth I am signed up to run a 5K for the third year in a row. More importantly, why am I not the least bit upset about it?
To understand the full weight of my friends and me choosing to register for a Thanksgiving race, you must first understand the depth to which we are not runners. I’m a weightlifter by nature, an activity not known for its extreme levels of cardio. The only two conditions under which you would find me running were if someone was chasing me or I needed to drop body weight for an upcoming meet.
My friend Joey much preferred long walks with a side of golf, or an occasional sprint when soccer required it. My other friend, Nastasia, was the closest thing we had to a runner, having retired from the Saturday parkruns she did with her family before they moved to another country when she was thirteen. So, between the weightlifter, the golf course walker, and the thirteen-year-old retiree, our trio didn’t quite strike anyone as natural-born distance runners.
I recall the fall lunch quite vividly, where our accidental tradition began. I had sat down at the table in our favorite teacher’s classroom, complaining about how my first meet of the season was approaching soon, and I needed to start running to be able to compete in my desired weight class.
The proposition that the three of us start training for a race honestly began as a total joke and a plea for someone to suffer through running with me. I had teased that it would be funny if our small group signed up for a Thanksgiving race called Huffin’ for the Stuffin’ in our hometown. I never expected Joey and Nastasia to actually consider the offer because frankly, I wasn’t even hoping to do it myself. However, through lots of cackling and embarrassing hypotheticals, we decided to begin training for the race, even if it was just for the sake of being able to say we did it.
The only thing worse than the idea of running a 5K on Thanksgiving morning is actually training for one. Most of our runs had to be completed separately due to our conflicting after-school activities. However, we still found togetherness through sending each other Strava kudos and grumbling over our sore legs as we sat down for lunch.
Looking back on it now, I realize that it was in that joint goal and pain that Joey and Nastasia went from being my lunch buddies and classmates to my best friends. That training was a turning point in our friendships, as it provided us with a new way to connect and an opportunity to support each other in different ways. For the first time in my life, I had found myself looking forward to a race, and dare I say, enjoying running.
I credit much of our crossing the finish line to sheer stubbornness in the face of the idea that we couldn’t do something. I’ve always been the type of person who rejoices in little victories over challenges rather than success in a subject I’m naturally skilled in. It was for that very reason that I took pride in wearing my Huffin’ for the Stuffin’ shirt for the entirety of Thanksgiving. We had been passed by people both triple and half our age, looked like we hadn’t trained a day in our lives, and could’ve used the footage for a reality TV show. Still, none of it truly mattered. We had secured a morning of obnoxious shared laughter and, in our minds, the undisputed right to brag at the holiday dinner table.
What my friends and I hadn’t realized that first year, when we put the “Huffin” in Huffin’ for the Stuffin’, was that we had established something that would far outlast what we had that day: a tradition. As our lives have become hectic with separate college journeys and inevitable change, the annual text to re-download Strava and train for a silly race remains the same. It’s a connection we keep over the phone, laughing about the year one of us had tonsillitis and the year when leg cramps nearly took another out. Unknowingly, in one ridiculous decision, we found a way to create a permanent bond, proving that an impactful change in life and friendships can sometimes come from the single most unexpected “why not?”