Plant a tree.

It is something that we hear about a lot. It is something we can do to support our beautiful, wonderous Mother Earth in healing and repairing herself from the human-caused damage she is overcoming. It is something I talk about a lot with running related brands, companies, and races.

Planting trees and reforestation (as well as preventing further deforestation) plays an important role in our community coming together to address climate change.

Planting trees feels good. When we do something that plants a tree on our behalf...

*like switching from the G word to Ecosia as your search engine, where every 75 searches you make, a tree is planted, and they have planted over 2 million now!*

...we are switching out something simple, that allows us to make change happen, without the mental load of doing something big.

The physical act of planting a tree ourselves feels even better. As I type this, I'm looking into my yard where we have two young trees that we planted (okay, Steve did the hole digging!) last summer.

However, you suspect the fact that I brought this up, means there is a "but" coming...

And yes, you're right, there is.

Let me share a story to get there.

I have finally accepted and embraced my title of Sustainability Director for the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Sept 2025 (I would love to have you participate in the "peoples races" for that event!).

I intend to have an opt out option for t-shirts to plant a tree instead. I am also toying around with the idea of a green bib (both literally and figuratively) that will provide runners some additional perks for making some emission-reducing decisions around the race.

As we are 18 months away, I am in full learning and curiosity mode. Last week I had a conversation with the Executive Director of our St. Louis tree-planting nonprofit, Forest ReLeaf, and she totally changed my perspective on tree planting.

Not that we shouldn't do it, but that there is so much more to it...

While tree planting is a critical part of reducing emissions, and believe me, we need as many trees as we can get, it's not just about sticking a tree in the ground, dusting off our hands, and calling it good, letting Mother Nature take care of the rest.

You see, that would have been the solution in the past....except climate change has meant drier conditions (and flash flooding), fluctuating temperatures, and other weather-related challenges that saplings have not evolved to handle.

Tree planting in 2024 and beyond doesn't just mean putting it in the ground, it means TLC for the next two years.

Don't worry, I am not saying you need to wake up three times in the night to go water the tree in the summer, or put a blanket around it and sing to it to keep it company in the winter, but yes, without help, many saplings do not survive...and as you can imagine, nonprofit staff do not have endless hours to check in on every tree they plant.

I intend to work with Meredith from Forest ReLeaf to create some actionable ways runners can be a part of making sure saplings survive; after all, we run past them often. Stay tuned for more on that.

This does not mean I do not believe in tree planting; there is something beautiful about this action that gets to the very core of a human heart. My heart says that is because we know we are not as different to trees as we think we are (ever noticed a fingerprint looks like tree rings?). Tree planting is and will continue to be part of the solution.

I can't wait to see how runners can be a part of making sure those trees grow old enough to thrive.

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On that note, I mentioned about opting out for t-shirts. While there are a lot of requests for an opt-out (that is something you can do; ask your race organizers for that option) and conversations about it, typically, only about 5% of runners opt out of t-shirts for races.

What am I missing here?

If I am to have an opt out for t-shirts for the World Road Running Championship races (for both elites and the mass races), I have to show the rest of the leadership team that runners will select that option....especially when said t-shirt says ,"World Road Running Championships" on it.

This week on the Running for Real podcast...

Here's the official description:

In October 2022, Tina released a podcast episode called “I Felt So Lost.” At the time, she knew she wanted to combine running with sustainability, but she wasn’t quite sure what direction that would take. Now, just a little over a year later, she says, “I feel like I've got my path; the train track is in front of me and I can see it, and I feel very excited about where it's going.”

Here's the real deal:

Well, I think Sally's description above does a good job....life update below.

Listen to the episode here

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Thanks for those responses to last week's email about going to meet with Sarah Crouch, we had the most magical time.

Live in New York? Or gonna be there March 16th? I would love to have you join New York Road Runners and me for a plogging run.

Yes! I wanna go plogging!

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“To be without trees would, in the most literal way, to be without our roots.”

― Richard Mabey

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Be kind to one another, yourself, and this beautiful planet of ours.

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