Feature Blog Fridays: A Black Girl Skeptic

By: Tiffany Noel Pitts (@TiffanyNPitts) “What is Black Girls Run?” That’s the first thing I asked when someone told me about an organization he heard of through a friend. I listened, “Best friends from college...encouraging other black women to run too…” I think his timing was bad. I was frustrated because my current running partner cancelled our meet up due to work and now I was stuck sitting in for the evening. It wasn’t that I couldn’t go running without her, it just that I was tired of running alone. So when he told me about Black Girls Run, I listened but it didn’t really mean anything at the time. Later I did a search on Facebook and found the BGR fan page. “Hmm” is what I thought. It was pretty active page, lots of women, lots of smiles, lots of enthusiasm. I wasn’t sure I wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Let’s be honest, could this many black women be this excited to be around one another? Was there really this much unity involved? I quickly liked the page and then moved on to my usual status updates. Then the frustration came again. None of my friends wanted to work out. We could eat, shop, hang out and babysit, but go running a mile or two, never. Soon, I received an invite for a run on Facebook, so I thought, “Might as well.” It was great. I ran a 30/30 my first time! Amazingly there was a genuine sense of unity and caring among the women. I was welcomed with open arms and encouragement. I’ve only ran once and it took me 3 days to recover from the soreness, but I think next time when I hear someone mention anything with BGR!, I won’t ignore it, I’ll say, “Where are we meeting?” ------------------------------------- Tiffany Pitts is a new member of BGR! Atlanta. She is an intermediate runner, and has been running as hobby for years. She has a goal to run the Peachtree Road Race 5K next year. Tiffany graduated from Florida A&M University (2005), and is a writer for minority small businesses in Atlanta. Her other hobbies include writing, volunteering and event planning.

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