Runner’s World+ Member: Berkley Hudson
Berkley is a Runner’s World+ member. Join him and thousands of others chasing their goals with day-by-day training plans, expert advice from editors and coaches, and unlimited digital access. We regularly feature members online and in print!
Running has brought me many blessings that spring from healing wounds in my life.
Those blessings took hold around age 20, when I dealt with the death of one of my brothers and then, soon after, my father. And over the years running has brought me moments of sheer joy—the runner’s high, if you will, almost every time I go out the door. In the process, running has helped me to develop a resilience in the face of troubles, an ability not to just survive, but thrive.
My body is not exceptional in terms of athleticism. Yet after running for decades—stress fractures, broken toes, scrapes, bruises, aches, of course—I inhabit my body so much more fully now than when I first ran in junior high. I love to go to races, to meet people from all over, to hear their stories and to share my stories, too. And I am better for all that.
Running has helped me stay in good health in combination with paying attention to what I eat and drink, and taking the rest my body demands. And running pairs beautifully with my decades-long practice of meditation. I feel as alive as ever, right now.
I started subscribing to Runner’s World around 1975. I like how the magazine works to foster a wide-ranging community of running. I see this new feature of RW+ in that light: providing support with pragmatic and inspirational ideas through digital, print and social media-savvy stories, pictures, sights and sounds, helping me to make connections and be a better runner.
To hear birdsong at dawn. To see a rabbit jump deeper into the underbrush. To see turtles bask in the noontime sun on a log. To trip and fall at night in the woods without my headlamp. Scrape my knee. Bruise my hand. Wrench my neck. Get up and finish my run. Learn the lesson that I still hadn’t learned after all these years: always wear a headlamp even if the moon is full.
To connect with that deep well of stillness, fullness, love inside me so that I become more aware of that in you as well. To sing aloud half remembered, silly songs from my childhood. To learn how to live my life more fully. To run one more mile, one more 5K, one more half-marathon, one more marathon.
For the last 17 years, I lived in Columbia, Missouri. The former MKT railroad line--now the Katy Trail--is an exquisite, unpaved, tree-shaded path between St. Louis and Kansas City, paralleling the Missouri River, with a midpoint at Columbia. I’ve run thousands of miles on it: from bitter snow to hot as hades summer to fall and spring sweet spots of 40 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s long been my favorite place to run, especially with the 5:30 AM Tuesday-Thursday running group which helped me return to running regularly again in 2004.
Recently, though, I’ve moved back to Chapel Hill, NC, and am falling in love with new routes along Morgan Creek and Merritt’s Pasture or other combo of trails and streets that emanate in spokes from where I sometimes start and finish on the cinder track that loops around the UNC Chapel Hill new track and field facility.
I bought an AfterShokz Areopex at the Los Angeles Marathon expo this year. I don’t always use it running, but it’s perfect for when I do. I can hear ambient sounds, too, so I can stay alert to traffic or people around me. I use a Garmin 245 along with Strava. I love running in my Nike Zoom Pegasus 36 and Bombas Performance Running Merino ankle socks. For long runs, I like to drink Tailwind during; EnduroxR4 after. Massage tools: Hypervolt, BFF, Ma Roller & The Stick.
To get a bib number for the New York City marathon in 2007, I ran as a charity fundraiser for Paul Newman’s “Hole in the Wall Gang” camps. It was rewarding to contribute and a hoot to meet before the race with the remarkable actor and philanthropist.
I started running in 1965 on the junior high track team in hot Mississippi. I was really too slow to run well on the 880-relay, but I loved running in hand-me down, red and white leather spikes a friend gave me. It felt so freeing to hear the crunch of my footfalls on the track. My favorite part, though, were warm-up and cool-down to and from our school to the track across town. That’s when I fell in love with longer runs. Fourteen years later, in 1979, I ran my first marathon, the Marine Corps in Washington, DC. Finishing was exhilarating. Since then, mostly in the last two decades, I’ve run a dozen more marathons and many more half marathons across America.
To keep runwalkrunning until I’m 100—inspired by Jeff Galloway. There are other marathons I’d still like to run: London, Rome, Chicago, Philadelphia, and maybe Los Angeles for a third time.
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