Runners are the most common kind of athlete in the world—there are hundreds of millions of us. But every runner, every run, is different. It’s your run. In this interview series, Runner’s World and Brooks explore the weird, wild, crazy, important, creative, silly things that individual runners do on their run. Here we speak to Vanessa C. Peralta-Mitchell, creator of the Game Changers Program, an organization that helps to promote BIPOC women to careers as certified run coaches as well as experts and leaders in the running industry.
Runner’s World: What does a typical day look like for you?
Vanessa C. Peralta-Mitchell: I wake up and say my prayers; then I get out of bed and meditate. On a really good day, I go for a run before I get my kids up and out the door. If not, I do it right after. Then I go to work in the attic of my home, which I call the penthouse. What I do here varies. In terms of routine, I do my affirmations and I journal.
I’ve found that there are a lot of things that I’m discovering about myself as a creator of the Game Changers Program. Just knowing that I can kind of unpack all these different layers of myself now, it’s really been an eye-opening experience for me. So I try to tap into that before I dive into my schedule. The rest of my day is some mixture of meetings, follow up, more meetings, more follow up, and specifically a lot of intention and structure behind the Game Changers Program. This can look a million different ways, but that’s the bulk.
RW: What is the Game Changers Program?
Peralta-Mitchell: It aims to redefine whom people see as experts and leaders in the running space. One of the things we’re most proud of is taking community runners and empowering them to be industry leaders. We do this by supporting women of color to become certified running coaches through mentorship, strategy, and scholarship.
RW: Tell us a little bit about your daily run.
Peralta-Mitchell: When I go for a run, I don’t listen to music. That’s not my thing. I listen to a recording of me reading an affirmation. It’s 15 minutes long. So for the first two miles, I hear myself, and it really gives me a chance to tap into the feeling of limitless possibility.
Then there are times when I’m thinking of anything from what I had for breakfast to how I’m going to take over the world. In that run, it’s almost like a blank canvas of brainstorming. I think about the Game Changers Program. I think about our coaches. I think about how to amplify and elevate what we’re doing. Out on that run is really where I get to play around with different ideas. And then since I’m in motion, it almost feels like it gives me an on-ramp for taking action. I’ll come back to the penthouse and write these things down. You know what they say, when you put pen to paper, that’s how things turn into reality.
RW: Tell us how you became interested in running.
Peralta-Mitchell: I remember watching a documentary about women in sports with my mom. It focused on the inequity of women having the right to participate in sports—just to participate! One of the sports that they covered was running. I played sports, but running wasn’t something that I did or knew anyone that did. But that documentary was so awesome that it moved me to set the goal to run a marathon, even though I had never run around the block. I had no idea how I was going to do it.
RW: How long after that did you run your first marathon?
Peralta-Mitchell: Years. Seriously, I graduated college, my husband and I had our first son, and I started training. So I would say probably five years—give or take.
RW: How has your running community grown and changed over the years?
Peralta-Mitchell: It has really changed a lot because I didn’t see running as a thing. But when I saw that documentary and I realized that this was a goal I wanted to do, I didn’t have a run community to go to. My high school and my college didn’t have track teams—obviously track and long-distance running are not the same, but just to be in that type of community wasn’t available.
So I built my own community that included anyone I told about my marathon goal: my parents, my siblings, my husband (who was my fiancé back then), and my friends. I told them my goal. As unsure they were when I told them, I felt that they had confidence in me that I was going to do it. They had no second guesses. Eventually I signed up for a run group and they became my community. I connected with two women in that group. We ran mostly the same pace, and we ran our first marathon together.
It was a very bumpy road getting there, but that’s how my community was formed. First I formed it myself and then it became a community.
RW: Sometimes people don’t want to say they’re a runner, especially when they’re just starting out. Was there a moment where it clicked for you and you decided, I am a runner?
Peralta-Mitchell: Yeah. I don’t know if it was a moment. When I did my first marathon, my whole family was there, and the community I had built. All these people were there with signs. From the outside eye, you could have easily said, ‘Oh, you must have felt like a runner.’ But I think if you would’ve asked me after that first marathon, I don’t think I still would’ve pegged myself as a runner. I would’ve pegged myself as someone who survived a great goal. Looking back now, I can probably say, “Yeah, that was a defining moment in terms of running my first marathon.”
But to answer that question today, I would say, that first time I put on my baggy sweats and my husband’s oversize sweatshirt and I ran on the dirt track that no longer exists, I was a runner that day too. So I guess it’s all perspective.
RW: Could you tell us a little bit about your general training routine and philosophy?
Peralta-Mitchell: For me, it’s really important to train our mind just as much as we train our body. I do follow a training plan in terms of hydration and nutrition, but if I had to get to the meaty part of how I train, I primarily focus on the mental—my mindset—and then secondarily physical.
I think that’s part of the reason why I don’t really listen to music: I don’t want an external force driving me forward. I really want to tap into what I’m capable of. For me, my training philosophy is from day one to train my mind just as much as I train my body. And I do that for each race because each one is its own little journey.
RW: How does running affect and change your relationship with space around you?
Peralta-Mitchell: I think what running has really helped me with in terms of the outside space is when I think of the lacks for me as a business owner. Sometimes there’s a lack of time, there’s a lack of money, there’s a lack of resources. Being outside when I’m running, it’s such a constant, beautiful reminder of abundance. When I’m outside and I’m running, there’s nothing holding me back in terms of where I’m pushing myself physically, where I am mentally, and to know that there are no limits because abundance is all around me.
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