The Finish Line Is Just the Beginning for Homeless Runners

More than 37,000 runners will compete in Saturday's Monument Avenue 10k in Richmond, Virginia. For at least 19 participants, crossing the finish line represents something extra special. They're all homeless, in various stages of transition, from living in shelters and unemployed, to working full-time and transitioning out of shelters back into homes and jobs. Training for and finishing this 10k has been one way they've all learned to set a goal, achieve it and feel good about themselves.

What makes this story so remarkable is what I call the "butterfly effect" (the idea that the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas). It's all happening because a woman named Anne Mahlum in Philadelphia dared to make a difference in her community. As reported by CNN:

PHILADELPHIA, PA - At 5 a.m. on any given day, Anne Mahlum could be found running the dark streets of Philadelphia -- with homeless men cheering her on as she passed their shelter. But one morning last spring, she stopped in her tracks.

"Why am I running past these guys?" recalls Mahlum, 27. "I'm moving my life forward every day -- and these guys are standing in the same spot." Instead of continuing to pass them by, the veteran marathoner sprang into action so they could join her.

She contacted the shelter, got donations of running gear, and in July 2007 the "Back On My Feet" running club hit the streets.

That might have been the end of it, another feel good story on national television. But that's how the butterfly effect begins. Then the breeze carries and someone else hears the call and the breeze gets stronger.

That someone else who heard the call was Dan Blankenship. The CNN story started him thinking. He too often ran past the homeless. "We need a program like that here in Richmond," he said to himself and to a few others. And for awhile, nothing came of it, until a couple of homeless men called out to him as he ran by them one day.

"Just like the woman who started her program, the homeless called out to me when I ran by. I stopped, turned around and went back and told them what I had in mind. I asked them if they'd like to learn to run. They said no, but after that they'd say 'Go Coach!' and give me high fives when I ran by."

Yennmi, 16, lives at a women's shelter with her mother. She is running her second 10k. Her mother is running with her.

The idea wouldn't leave him alone. "I finally said, 'If there's going to be a program for homeless runners, I'm going to have to start it,'" he told me. So he did. He was one man, with a full-time job at Dell, another 20 hours a week spent running and coaching with the YMCA and a family at home. But he grabbed the idea and, ahem, ran with it.

"I didn't know what I was doing," he admits. He figured it out as he went along. He contacted folks he knew in the running community and asked for donations of shirts, running clothes and shoes. He was overwhelmed with donations. He started sending emails to local shelters asking if they had clients who might be interested. He contacted the staff at his YMCA and got their support and a donation of the use of the facilities. Richmond's Sportsbackers club helped with registration fees. And it came together. He used the same training regimen he used with other runners, but added a week to the usual 11-week program. And he learned to adapt to some other needs too, like getting locks for gym lockers so the participants had a place to keep their things.

Laundry was an issue for some, so Blankenship collected dirty laundry every week and took it home and washed it himself so the runners would have clean clothes every week.

And so, the program began. It began with high fives, which became hugs. The 19 members of the initial 28 that kept at it became a team. They supported and encouraged each other and kept running, even when record snowfalls closed the YMCA two weeks in a row.

Dan told me he learned a lot in these past 12 weeks. What surprised him was the dedication, the passion, the support and "just how nice" the team members are. "We had a few rules. No drinking or drugs and treat everyone with respect. Break those rules and you're out. It's what I expect from any group I work with. We never had a problem." That, and the fact that working with the group broke all his stereotypes about what homelessness is, made him even more passionate about his program.

"Homeless isn't who you are, it's about where you're at," he said Saturday as the group prepared to run their last team run before the race on the 27th. The face of "homelessness" surprised all of the coaches. It's not what you think it is. It's just people who don't have a place to live for a time for whatever reason, the coaches said.

What sets all of the runners apart is their fierce passion to "do this," to set this goal and achieve it.

Bryan Ames, one of the runners, said he "made a commitment to myself." That was all that kept him running when there was two feet of snow on the ground and temperatures were in the single digits and it would have been easy to give up. He just didn't think about alternatives. "I just thought, I made a commitment and I'm keeping it," he said.

"The 19 team members are all homeless, living in various shelters or wherever. We don't really ask and it doesn't matter," Dan said. "What matters is they get to have fun, and get fit."

And while the men are shy, the women aren't.

"Most people are only a paycheck away from homelessness themselves," one runner said. She and the others talked about friends who lost their homes when they lost their jobs and failed to make their mortgage payments.

"I had a friend lose her home after her husband lost his job and her hours were cut back. She came to me and said 'What do I do?'"

Wayne played high school and college football and basketball. He knows what price the body has to pay to get back in shape. "But it feels good," he laughed. "It feels real good."

"We've got to educate people about what it means to be homeless," said JoLynda Underwood, a staff member at Home Again, a women's shelter in Richmond. "It's not who you are, it's what you're going through. You don't let it define you. You define it. That's why we're here. We're doing this for us."

Many on the team say they plan to continue running after the 10k. Their next goal is a 26-week program to run a marathon. They'll have the same coaches, but they won't be known as "the homeless team."

"You'll be out there with everybody else, doing what everybody else is doing," Dan told them. "How much you want to share of your situation is up to you. But you're runners now, and that's what we're calling you."

Photo credit: Becky Blanton