Why I’ve Been Running in Circles
If you follow me on Instagram or Strava, you may have noticed that I’m doing this funny thing: running over and over again on .3 mile triangle in Central Park. Why would I do such a thing? I can try to explain the Burrito League, or you can read all about it here or here, but it won’t really fully explain it. It being my personal participation. Yes, there are prizes (burritos, running shoes, race entries) for the runners who complete the segment the most times. But that’s definitely not why I’m doing it. I never thought I’d have a chance at any prizes. The fact that I’ve been on the NYC leaderboard for the first couple weeks of the competition makes me chuckle. Who, me?
To my family, who have known me the longest, the fact that I run at all is, I think, a source of confusion and amusement. I started running just under two years ago, on a cold day in late February. It was too cold to ride my bike, and I wanted to do something that gave me a similar sense of exhilaration and sweat that I got doing loops around Central Park. I had never been a runner. I was the kid who hated being made to run in gym class. I was the adult who tried, once, to do a Couch-to-5K on an app, and quit before I got to two miles. This time when I tried running, I was already in shape from cycling and strength training at home. My first runs were fifteen to twenty minutes. I listened to Coach Bennett’s encouraging advice in my ear on the Nike Run Club app, and learned about easy runs, speed runs, and long runs.
Gradually, my runs got long enough to achieve what was then my goal: to complete a 5k. I got it into my head that I could do a sprint triathlon, a race that involves 750 meters of swimming, 20k of cycling, and 5k of running. I signed up for a race. A few weeks before the triathlon, I entered the first running race of my life: the LIC waterfront 5K, with my bestie Nina and her friend Natasha. I couldn’t believe the energy of that race. It was one of the most fun half hours I’d had in so long. How did I not know about this before? The energy, the feeling of accomplishment, the way brunch tasted extra delicious after.
The truth is, when I think back on it, I did know something about the joys of pushing my body to do hard things. I did Outward Bound when I was nineteen, spending two weeks canoeing and portaging and camping in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. My husband Josh and I backpacked for six months, from Ecuador to Argentina, after we finished college. We were hikers and adventurers, long before we settled into life as working parents. In graduate school in my twenties I became a dedicated yogini, finding strength and peace in sweaty, challenging vinyasa yoga classes. Then, we had three kids and life became a different kind of endurance sport. Pregnancy, birth, and raising young children is a series of physical feats. When we could, we fit in more endurance adventures: a cycling trip, a day hike. But mostly, my life was about a balance between caring for my family, working in publishing, and finding intellectual sustenance in creative writing.
With two of my kids in college and one in high school, the physical parts of parenting are now behind me. At the age of 49, I ran my first half marathon. I also ran my first trail race, a magical experience at the Zion Ragnar, where I ran 19 miles and our relay team took first place in the mixed masters category. So far at 50, I’ve run two trail half marathons and I’ve got two more road half marathons planned, plus my first marathon coming up in May. As anyone who runs knows, while the races are super fun, they aren’t really the point. The training is the point. Getting up in the dark and running before I go to work is the point. Feeling like I won’t die if I have to run for a train is the point. Inspiring my kids to run with me is the point. Running as a part of my daily life, as a part of who I am, is the point.
Which brings me back to the Burrito League. It’s been so inspiring to see my coach, Kelsey McGill, killing it in Tempe, AZ, the original league where she’s been running around 40 miles a day (!!) and leading the women’s competition for almost two weeks. When I saw that the NYC segment happened to be literally on my daily running route, I couldn’t not check it out. The morning after it was announced, my daughter Louisa and I went and did a few loops. It seemed so kooky and fun. And then I just kept doing it. I’ve been running my usual miles (plus a little extra), but I’ve just been doing them there. Hence an early morning half marathon on the segment, in which I ran the loop 43 times, in 22 degree weather (feels like 7). Meeting other runners on the segment and bonding over the silliness is part of the joy. Watching the winter sunrise over the east side has been an amazing bonus. I’m sure when it’s all over at the end of the month, I’ll be very happy to get back to my regular Central Park and West Side routes. But for now, I’m finding a lot of joy in the silliness and the connectedness of this meditative exercise.
This quirky challenge expanded quickly to cities across the country and world. Clearly it’s not just me that finds something fun and rewarding about running in circles. And I think that’s the point, really. Running isn’t about getting anywhere. For me, running is about the journey, not the destination.
I know it’s weird! I get it. But so is running as much as I do, anyway. So no, I’m not an ultrarunner (yet). I am just a person who really likes to run. I still don’t know just how far I can go. For now, it’s round and round and round. See you out there?
Sunrise on the NYC Burrito League segment, January 14, 2026