Trail running- Community, Connection, and a Place to Call Home

Community, Connection, and a Place to Call Home

By Ornery Author Ryan Chukuske

I want all of you to go back to the days before finding the sport of running. Some of us might have to really dig into the memory banks to get to that point. For me, it started when I was in seventh grade and joined the track team. The coach was also the junior high basketball coach and one day during practice he said to me, “Chukk (that’s my lifelong nickname), you are really terrible at basketball but damn if you’re not fast as hell. You need to forget about the ball and hit the track.” So that spring, it’s exactly what I did. And he was right. I was pretty fast. At short sprints; not the distance stuff. So, there I was finding myself running the open 100 meters and joining a junior and two seniors on the 4x100 relay team as the anchor. Pretty intimidating stuff if you ask me.

But running didn’t stick with me past my high school years. I took on more of a party and rock n’ roll lifestyle. Seriously, I was in a punk rock band and toured around the Midwest for a few awesome years. Got myself a cigarette addiction and always found a reason to get good and liquored up while enjoying the mediocre punk rock lifestyle. To be honest, it was a lot of fun and I got to hang out with and party with a lot of really well-known bands. At a certain point in time, choices had to be made. Ride this almost impossible dream of becoming a huge success or decide that it may be time to take my education serious and make the decision to have music be a more recreational part of my life.

So that’s what I did. And despite the disappointment from my fellow bandmates and our small fanbase, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. At this point in my life, I found myself to be overweight, out of shape, a bit depressed, and rather lethargic. I asked myself, “When was the last time you didn’t feel this way?” The answer was simple. It was when I was running. I felt so alive during my running days. I felt so connected to other people. The solution to all the things I was going through was so simple. Running. Now I knew that there was not going to be some glorious return to my sprinting days so I started to look into running longer distances. We didn’t have a cross country team at my school when I was there so I had never really heard of 5K races. But looking online, I found that there were a ton of them all over the place just about every weekend.

Ornery Author Ryan Chukuske ( on the left)

And so, the journey began. And I think this happens to a lot of us. We may have a background of running and many stories to tell of our younger years (and maybe not), but there’s something that happens externally that turns on something internally. I suddenly had something I wanted to prove to myself that I could accomplish. I set out to get after this seemingly impossible 5K. I ran my first one in the small town of Truman, MN. Upon arriving for the packet pickup, I realized that there was a buzz in the air. There was a sense that something really fun was about to take place. Unlike my high school competition days, everyone was talking to each other. Shaking hands. Wishing each other good luck. Although I am quite the introvert, I love gatherings so I joined in, introducing myself and listening to all the stories of past races that people were sharing. Community, connection, and a place that I could call home.

This spoke to me on so many different levels. What a great group of individuals. There was no bias here. No intolerance. No bickering or judgement. The race started and we all took off down the outskirt country roads of Truman and unbelievably, when all was said and done, this unknown person, new to the game, won the race. Thinking I may be met with disdain as this outsider to the sport who came and robbed someone of their rightful place as the champion, I was instead met with hugs and high fives, and a complimentary waffle breakfast at the local VFW. From that moment I was hooked on the actual, genuine, community, connection, and the place I would now call home. The community of runners who do this because they love it. Because they enjoy connecting with others just like themselves. People who have their own stories to share. The highs and the lows and none of matters because we simply enjoy being out there and supporting each other.

There have been books and articles and podcast discussing the idea of the loneliness that goes along with being a long-distance runner. Sure, this can certainly be true. Any of us can think of times during our training, during our racing adventures where it seems like we’re all alone. But then we connect. Whether it’s through posting our latest training run, coming up on a fellow runner, or getting to that next aid station, we realize that we are part of a really great community of people. To all of my running family, thank you for always being there for me even when I sometimes feel disconnected. Thank you to everyone that believes in all of you and supports all of you. Remember that what we have is something special and something that will be with us for the rest of our days. Stay ornery and journey on my friends.