I’m honored that two of my articles about improving improving access to the outdoors for BIPOC urban residents made it into their respective publications’ top 10 stories of 2022. They include this one, in BELT Magazine:
An Auto Plant Becomes a State Park
And this one, in Planet Detroit:
This got me thinking about other stories I was able to help tell this year. Most of them focus on people whose stories I feel deserve more attention. So here are 10 of my favorites from 2022.
The adaptive athletes and advocates who finished the Hood to Coast relay
This team of 12 adaptive athletes is likely the first of its kind to complete the 198-mile Hood to Coast relay. They have various physical challenges: Several are amputees who run on prosthetic legs, one is blind, two have spinal cord injuries and race in push-rim wheelchairs. They didn’t just make history and boost representation, though–they’re also fighting for kids with disabilities. They’re working to get states to require insurance companies to cover recreational prostheses for kids. This was my first article for Outside.
The first elite team of Native runners
I love Patti Catalano Dillon (who is the first American woman to break 2:30 in the marathon and is Mi’kmaq), and I was excited to hear that she became head coach of Wings of America‘s new Wings Elite Program for Native athletes. Native runners are underrepresented in the running community, and this team is working to change that.
My first podcast episode
This was a new format for me, and I loved talking with Ann Gaffigan about her experience winning the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the 2004 Olympic Trials and setting an American record. The women’s steeplechase wasn’t yet an Olympic event at the time, so Gaffigan’s win didn’t earn her a ticket to the Olympics. We talked about her career and how her relationship with running evolved. It’s part of Starting Line 1928, an oral history project to document the stories of pioneers in women’s distance running–in their own voices.
The far-reaching effects of abortion bans
In all the talk about the abortion bans states have been enacting, I thought one thing was missing: how they will harm people who miscarry and need medical treatment, regardless of their stance on abortion.
The fight to save track and field programs
As NCAA track and field programs vie to survive, Black students suffer most
Several universities have cut their men’s track and field teams in recent years. Cutting teams is a painful reality for many athletes, but cutting sports such as track disproportionately harms Black men and closes doors to educational opportunities. It also has broader consequences that some universities don’t seem to understand. I wrote this for The Guardian.
Hundreds of Detroit kids try canoeing for the first time
Closing Michigan’s ‘adventure gap’: Floating classroom gets hundreds of students out on the water
For this one, I got to tag along with some Detroit high schoolers who learned how to canoe, through a program called Canoemobile–and I got to hear and see them appreciating the time in nature. Like everything Detroit Outdoors does to help kids connect to nature, it was amazing.
Women who are making the running community more inclusive
In this issue of Women’s Running, I wrote about three women I admire for making the sport of running and track & field better and more inclusive: Raven Saunders, Alison Mariella Désir, and Dinée Dorame. It was special to me because it allowed me to highlight their important work and because it ended up being in Women’s Running’s final print issue. I’m sad about the print magazine being discontinued, but I’m grateful for that last issue, because my mom brought it to my grandma a couple months before she died, read these articles to her, and shared photos of her holding the magazine and marveling over what I’d written about these women.
Running shoes made out of captured carbon emissions
I thought this technology from On Running was so interesting–capturing carbon emissions from factories and making that material into foam for running shoes. This was my first article for Well+Good.
Native meadows in Motown
This was my first article for Audubon magazine, about a project called Detroit Bird City, which is transforming underused Detroit parks into native meadows, which provide habitat for birds in decline and create safe natural spaces for human neighbors to enjoy.
The runners who built something wonderful out of a tragedy
After Kenyan runner Agnes Tirop was murdered, her father and a group of her fellow athletes formed an organization called Tirop’s Angels to honor her, stop gender-based violence, and change societal norms.
Awesome site!