Laura Green wants to make running fun again

Also: The WNBA is mistreating its best hope — and it's making me mad [Donate ❤️]( [View in Browser](  June 9, 2024 Dear Cog reader, I didn’t start running until I was nearly 18. I was a high school senior and, yet again, the new kid at school. Through a weird set of circumstances, I found myself at my third high school in two years and I was struggling to make friends. With a lot of free time on my hands, I started running. Logging miles didn’t just give me something to do, it gave me something to control. It gave me a sense of progress when all I was really doing was biding my time, counting the days until graduation and college — where everyone would be the new kid and we could all have a fresh start together. I can’t name five kids I eventually graduated with in 1990. But if you dropped me back into that neighborhood, a place I only lived for a single academic year, I could trace the four-mile route I ran over and over again. I would show you how I used to thread the headphone cord of my Sony Walkman up the back of my T-shirt so it wouldn’t bounce around so much. And I can still recite all the lyrics to a Jimmy Buffet mixtape I memorized while I ran because a long-distance crush gave it to me. Running was the friend I didn’t have that year. In college, when the close quarters of dorm life got me down, running gave me much needed solitude. As a busy mom of babies and toddlers, running allowed me to exercise while spending time with friends — two birds, one stone. And now, in midlife, running has been better for me than therapy. But more than anything, running has been fun. The apex of my running career came in 2016 when 11 friends and I won first place in the master’s division of the Washington D.C. Ragnar, a 200-mile relay race. My teammates were fierce, but also funny, so what I remember most vividly from that 30-hour race was how sore my abs were from laughing. All that said, I’ve never been fast; I am a back-of-the-packer. And for a long time, I didn’t even call myself a runner. I would say, “I like to run,” "I’m going for a run,” or “I ran that race,” but never, “I’m a runner.” Laura Green would tell me that’s hogwash. I first discovered Laura during a particularly lonely time. After emerging from a COVID cocoon, I was working remotely and dealing with the social challenges of midlife. My closest running buddy had moved away and my aging body was making running harder and slower. The first time I watched one of Laura’s bits on Instagram, I felt an immediate kinship. Laura was a Division I runner in college, but she isn’t an elitist when it comes to the sport. She believes that anyone who runs any distance at all — even just a few steps during a run/walk — is a runner. Her Instagram account made me feel less alone — even when I was doing a solo run on my basement treadmill. It may look like she’s just clowning around, but working with her on this story made me realize that Laura does everything with intention: [Laura wants to make running fun again](. We’re here for it. And based on the reaction [an Instagram reel WBUR produced with Laura]( earlier this week, you are, too. Cog x Laura Green appears to be the collab you’ve all been waiting for. Happy trails, Kate Neale Cooper Editor, Cognoscenti [Follow]( P.S.— The Cog team has been very busy lately. First, we hosted a great CitySpace event last month with Anita Diamant, Dr. Jim O'Connell, Ana Sortun, Catherine Morris and musical guest Kimaya Diggs. You can [watch the video here](. Second, Cog editor Sara Shukla published her debut novel, “[Pink Whales](," last week. [It’s the perfect summer read](. Congrats, Sara! 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