Several miles south of Clapp’s house lie the hottest Strava
routes in Baltimore. Almost every one follows the wide
brick promenade that curls around the waterfront of the
Inner Harbor, the city’s crown jewel. The path winds past
the tourist shops and high-end Harbor East, through the
historic, cobblestoned Fells Point and down to the Canton
Waterfront Park.
The promenade is where Baltimore’s running groups
meet, including Clapp’s: a handful of mostly black runners
known as RIOT (Running Is Our Therapy) Squad Running.
The group started as a response to the ‘trauma and suffering
happening in Baltimore in people’s personal lives,’ says
founder Rob Jackson, 37. For them, running ‘can be used as
a stress reliever and as a way to get healthy, in a city where
the life-expectancy difference between blacks and whites
is significant [six years]’.
They start at 8am on Sundays with a few miles around
the water at an ‘all are welcome’ pace. Most of the runners
live more than 20 minutes away and most travel by car to
get there. Clapp himself takes a 30-minute bus ride from
Ramblewood, but says it’s worth it, if only for the view.
It’s Baltimore’s top spot for runners for good reason. In a
city beset by an endless cycle of growth and decay, it exists
as an idyllic escape. Uninterrupted, the path hugs seven
miles of waterfront, past bobbing yachts, lively patio bars and
even a stretch of sandy beach used as a trendy social pop-up.
A tale of two cities
THE PROMENADE ROUTE LIES AS A LARGER PUZZLE PIECE in the city’s
running scene, one that few acknowledge. When viewing the
Strava heatmap of Baltimore, the most-run routes of the city
blend to form the outline of a letter ‘L’ that glows like neon.
It begins in the north and runs straight down the city’s
spine, before diverting east along the Inner Harbor and
promenade. This area of Baltimore is also a demographic
phenomenon known as ‘the white L’. It’s the area where
resources are directed and luxury apartment complexes
erected. Its lines are as obvious in real life as they are
on the Strava heatmap, and most people who live inside it
stay inside it.
Just as obvious are two areas outside
of it, segregated to the left and the right.
They’re Strava deserts where running seems
nonexistent, or if there are runners, they
don’t use GPS. These stretch around the
Patapsco River and out to the county lines,
forming a rough shape of wings. These areas
are pocked with vacant homes and there is
soaring poverty. It’s another demographic
phenomenon – ‘the black butterf ly’.
As a youth, Clapp attended Baltimore
City College, a public high school with an
active sports programme. ‘A lot of my friends
got their running in by way of football or
basketball practice,’ says Clapp. But he wasn’t
very athletic.
Running wasn’t part of his life until much
later into adulthood, when he was able to
ref lect on the benefits of the sport. For many children in
Baltimore, it’s the same. Physical education, much less
running, isn’t a priority.
A 2018 report funded by the Baltimore-based sports
shoe and apparel company Under Armour and the Aspen
Institute found that most schools in rundown East Baltimore
provided little more than the minimum requirement for
physical education. ‘There are basic fitness issues,’ said one
educator in the study.
Outside school, things get even more difficult. Baltimore is
experiencing a violent crime wave of unforeseen proportions,
even by the city’s standards. In 2017, it recorded 342 murders,
giving it the dubious distinction of having the highest per
capita murder rate of any city in the US. Less than two-thirds
of students in the Under Armour study said there’s a safe
place to play in their neighbourhood.
Without areas to run in, exposure to the sport is minimal.
This is compounded by the fact that running really is a
luxury. Running is more than shoes and an
open front door. It is money – to enter races,
to buy running shoes, which can cost more
than a day’s wages. Running is time. It is
selfish to go alone and into your own head
when others need that body at home. Even
if time and money aren’t obstacles, the safer
running routes are more than a mile away
and no running groups in the city meet in
your neighbourhood.
Every running store in Baltimore sits
within the white L. Every major running
group not only meets in the white L, but runs
almost exclusively within its borders. The
only races that go through a predominantly
black neighbourhood for more than a mile
are the Baltimore Running Festival’s full
and half marathon.
‘People don’t see running happening,
so they may not think about starting to run,’ says Clapp.
Another group leading the way for running in Baltimore’s
black community is the Black Running Organization (BRO).
Led in part by 37-year-old entrepreneur Isa Olufemi,
BRO empowers black runners through embracing
their heritage and developing unity. In addition to BRO, for
three years, Olufemi also led a running club at Dunbar High
School, in the heart of East Baltimore, known as the Poet
Pride Run Club (PPRC). With grant funding for coaching
064 RUNNERSWORLD.COM/UK SEPTEMBER 2019
RUNNING IS TIME.
IT IS SELFISH
TO GO ALONE
AND INTO YOUR
OWN HEAD
WHEN OTHERS
NEED THAT
BODY AT HOME