Alison Mariella Désir is a runner, activist, author of Running While Black, and host of the award winning PBS series Out & Back. In 2013, she started a community run club in Harlem with a simple goal: help more Black and Brown people experience the joy and connection of running. That grassroots effort helped launch a career dedicated to building community, expanding access to the outdoors, and empowering others to pursue their own adventures.
Alison Mariella Désir is a runner, activist, author of Running While Black, and host of the award winning PBS series Out & Back. In 2013, she started a community run club in Harlem with a simple goal: help more Black and Brown people experience the joy and connection of running. That grassroots effort helped launch a career dedicated to building community, expanding access to the outdoors, and empowering others to pursue their own adventures.
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Shelby Stanger:
Over a decade ago in November of 2013, Alison Mariella Désir was putting up flyers around her neighborhood, she was advertising a new community run club.
Alison Mariella Désir:
I really had this sense that the way that running saved my life, it could save other people's life. And it wasn't really until, I want to say four to six months that I got my first person who came.
Shelby Stanger:
Alison lived in Harlem at the time, and even though it took a while for anyone to show up, she was determined to share her sport with other Black and Brown runners. Her tenacity paid off, that run club would eventually become an integral part of Alison's life and career as a writer, activist, and TV host. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production, presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. Today, Alison is a multidisciplinary runner and thought leader in the outdoor industry. She's the author of the book, Running While Black, and she hosts the award-winning PBS show, Out and Back.
Over the last 13 years, Alison has had wild idea after wild idea, and they all come back to the same themes, building community and empowering others to chase their own outdoor adventures. Alison Mariella Désir, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living, it's a joy to have you on, finally, we've been trying to do this for a few years now, I feel like.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yes, thank you so much. Long time coming.
Shelby Stanger:
So, let's go back. You've made a lot of impact in the outdoor industry, and I'm just curious, where did it start? Were you always outdoorsy as a kid? How did you even get into the outdoors?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah. I would say that growing up, I didn't have a concept of the outdoors, I thought about the outdoors as going outside. And this is something that often we talk about in the Black community that the outdoors is sort of this commodified kind of space, and going outside is just going outside. So, I actually spent a lot of time outside, I was always bike riding, I used to climb trees, which now that I have a seven-year-old, if I ever see him in a tree, I will be very scared. I was always climbing trees, I was running. So, in essence, I grew up as an outdoors kid, but I didn't really think of it in that way. I would say it wasn't until really 10 or 15 years ago that I started to think about the outdoors as a space for adventure in a more intentional way.
Shelby Stanger:
So, how did you get into running then?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah, so I grew up running, I was a track and field athlete, so I ran the 100, the 400, 400 hurdles, I did high jump... I remember in high school, I forget why, but there was a challenge when I was a junior to run 10 miles, and I though 10 miles was the most outrageous thing in the world.
Shelby Stanger:
It's so far when you're a kid. Yeah.
Alison Mariella Désir:
So far, especially when you're used to running one lap around the track.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alison Mariella Désir:
But my best friend and I, we did it, and I couldn't walk for a week afterwards. So, I ran 10 miles and then I wouldn't turn to distance running again until 2012. And I returned to distance running after being very, very depressed. I was at home during this time in my life, because I couldn't find a job, I was in a relationship that was super unhealthy, my father was very sick with Lewy body dementia.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh.
Alison Mariella Désir:
And so, I spent most of my time just scrolling on social media. And I happened to see a friend of mine who was training for a marathon, and what was unique is that he was a six-foot Black guy, 200 pounds, and I had never seen a regular degular Black guy train for a marathon. I knew that East Africans, of course, were winning marathons, but a regular recreational athlete, that struck me as strange. So, I followed his journey, and then when I realized that he could do it, I decided to do it the very next year. And training for this marathon literally gave me life. All of a sudden I had a reason to leave my apartment, I had a training plan, I had concrete things to do with my life, and every week I could see progress.
Which, I think is just the most beautiful thing about any endurance sport is that you try your hardest and you get results. And it's super helpful, not just for your physicality, but also for your mental health.
Shelby Stanger:
Alison signed up for her first marathon through an organization called Team in Training, which helps runners prepare for race day with professional coaching and structured group runs. Along the way, participants also raised money for cancer research. The support made a big difference for Alison, and after 16 weeks of training, she successfully completed the Rock and Roll San Diego Marathon. You did the marathon, how was it?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yes, I ran the marathon, I ran it, I think in four hours and 31 minutes, which-
Shelby Stanger:
That's amazing.
Alison Mariella Désir:
... I was super happy for. I raised over $5,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and that is what launched me into building community. Because I loved my experience, but what I noticed is that I was one of very few Black people, Black women there. And I knew that more people like me could benefit from the sport.
Shelby Stanger:
That experience planted a seed for Alison. At the time, she was living in Harlem, working on a master's degree, and hungry to share her sport with the local community. That's when she started building Harlem Run.
Alison Mariella Désir:
So, I started in November of 2013, and every Monday night I was showing up, and I was posting on Instagram, which was barely a thing then, I was handing out flyers in the neighborhood. And it wasn't really until, I want to say four to six months that I got my first person who came, and there's actually this video that-
Shelby Stanger:
So, time out.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah, yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
You would show up for four to six months and no one else showed up?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yes. I showed up every week, and some weeks I would leave crying, I would call my mom, but I really had this sense that the way that running saved my life, it could save other people's life, because I was learning so much through the process. If you ask me now, would I show up for four to six months by myself, the answer is no, but back then it felt essential to me.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm really curious about that, that's impressive. That's a wild idea, where you didn't give up six months.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
I can see someone showing up three weeks maybe, but usually people give up. Even in podcasts, people give up after the third show, they're like, "It's too hard."
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah. Yeah, no, I had-
Shelby Stanger:
So, you showed up every single week.
Alison Mariella Désir:
I would show up every single week, I convinced three of my friends to do a photo shoot with me, and these photos are the most embarrassing photos. This is before I knew you could run and somebody could take a picture while you're moving. So, all of the pictures are staged, and these were the photos that I was using to advertise the run. But it was me all by myself. There was this guy... So, next door there was a barbershop, and me and this guy, Henry, would talk every week, and then he'd see me go home.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So, what happened when someone finally showed up?
Alison Mariella Désir:
I lost it. I mean, internally I lost it. I tried to seem really cool on the outside, but this person, Krista, you could tell that she didn't realize it was just going to be the two of us. I tried to play it cool like, "Oh yeah, it's just us this time." But it was really nice. There's this clip that I saw on YouTube of, it's an old clip, but it's of this guy dancing, and he looks really weird, he's dancing, doing all these strange moves, and he's by himself, and there are all these people watching him. And then, one person wanders over and starts dancing with him, and before you know it, everybody that was watching him on the hill is dancing and doing these weirdo moves with him. And that to me, so when Krista showed up, I was like, okay, this is momentum. Because I know I was the weirdo by myself, now, there's two of us, it's not so weird. And of course, after that, I want to say six months after that, there were over 100 people running with us.
Shelby Stanger:
100 people?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah, 150 people showing up, all ages, sizes, races in Harlem.
Shelby Stanger:
For the next several years, Alison focused on Harlem Run. She built the group around a few central tenants. First, if you show up once, you're automatically a member of the club. Second, all paces are welcome. These rules helped Alison create a culture that has stood the test of time, even after she and her husband left New York. So, how come you moved to Seattle?
Alison Mariella Désir:
That's a good question. So, we were living in the Bronx at the start of the pandemic, and if you had asked me if I'd ever leave New York, let alone go to Seattle, I would've said definitely not. But we weren't seeing any of our friends because at one point, New York was the center of the pandemic, and it was actually, it was terrible, I know it was terrible for everybody. But we lived really close to Randall's Island, and they had started using Randall's Island as a morgue essentially. So, we would go out for walks and there were refrigerated containers because the morgues had been overrun. So, it was just, we weren't seeing our friends, it was a very difficult time for everybody. And we started imagining what life could look like somewhere else where we could get outdoors more easily.
And my husband found a job, and so we were like, now is the time, right? We can't see our friends, nobody's going to miss us on a physical level, we're Zooming our friends. So, we decided to move, and it really, just like Harlem Run was that wild idea, a second big wild idea was that we could create a new life in Seattle.
Shelby Stanger:
That's amazing. Is Harlem Run Club still around today?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah, it's still around. So, I now obviously live in Seattle, but there's an amazing leadership team that is still leading Harlem Run, every week there are new people, and what I knew was really important, despite not having any real community building skills, I knew that a culture will form whether you're intentional about it or not. If you don't talk about your values, well, whatever people interpret your values are will become the values of the space. So, I was really, really intentional about making sure that it was a space where people could show up as their authentic selves, where it wasn't about how fast you were, it was about improvement, if you wanted that, or it was about making friends. And so, the leadership team, people come and go over the years, but they really hold tight to the values of Harlem Run and it continues to thrive.
Shelby Stanger:
This is really cool. I was on your website for a while and you have a guide you can download on building, I want to say it's inclusive community?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah, exactly.
Shelby Stanger:
And it was really beautiful. I went and read it, and some of the things that stuck out to me was, "Be vulnerable yourself and then introduce yourself, make sure no one runs alone, have all paces available."
Alison Mariella Désir:
Exactly.
Shelby Stanger:
And I was like, these are really simple things.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yes. Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
But they go a long way.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Absolutely. So, I'm also a therapist, so I was learning through that, just the power of vulnerability. And believe it or not, most people feel awkward and uncomfortable when they come to group scenarios. You may be thinking I'm the only one in the world who feels this way, but everybody's feeling a little bit unsure. And so, if you take that step to introduce yourself, which is why at Harlem Run every week starts with turn to the person to your left and introduce yourself, it breaks the ice. You laugh because it's a little bit awkward, you might find something in common. And then when you go out to run, you know at least one other person, that other person will look out for you. It really just creates a space for you to show up as human beings acknowledging each other.
Shelby Stanger:
Tell me how creating this run club changed your life and creating community changed your life, and also, what about with Harlem Run Club? Any stories of people met and got married, or?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, I didn't say this, but I met my husband through Harlem Run. So, way back at the beginning, I was looking through hashtags on Instagram, and somebody was using the hashtag, #WeRunHarlem, that somebody is now my husband, Amir.
Shelby Stanger:
Whoa.
Alison Mariella Désir:
But he was leading-
Shelby Stanger:
I got goosies. I love a good adventure love story.
Alison Mariella Désir:
... he was leading a run club every last Sunday out of his church, just 10 blocks away. And so, we met, and yeah, the rest is history. But we are not the only ones. Actually, tonight, two people are having their baby shower. One woman is on the leadership team of Harlem Run, and the person that she's having a baby with, she met through Harlem Run. It's created new life, people have gotten divorces, people have lost a lot of weight, if that's what they wanted to do, people have changed careers completely, realized what I want to do is be in the running and outdoor industries. It's awesome.
Shelby Stanger:
I love what you're saying because I think there's so much power in the fact that you had a vision, something wasn't there. Instead of complaining about it, you went and built it, and you made it happen. But you also just were like, "I want to do it." It wasn't like you were thinking, it was just pure joy. You're motivated by joy and necessity and a love to bring other people with you. And in doing that, you got so wealthy.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
And maybe not just money, but the important things in life that are wealthy, like a husband, a kid, friends, a fulfilling job, brand partnerships, seat at the table.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Totally.
Shelby Stanger:
Making seats for others at the table. And I think that's what's so powerful about wild ideas, but your story is so... I just still can't believe you showed up for six months with no one, and then it led to this great career and movements and raising money for other people. That's the sauce, helping other people.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Runner and activist Alison Mariella Désir had spent years building a run club in Harlem when she decided to move from New York to Seattle. While she was leaving behind a vibrant community, she knew that her work in the sport was far from over. At the time, Alison was writing a book called Running While Black, a project that was influenced by the murder of Black runner, Ahmaud Arbery in February of 2020. As the Black Lives Matter movement grew, the outdoor industry was forced to finally have some hard conversations around racial justice, and Alison quickly became an active voice in the space. Her speaking and organizing work opened the door for her to host a new show with PBS. Tell me about your PBS job, how you got it and what you do.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yes. So, I am the host of Out and Back with Alison Mariella Désir on Cascade PBS, and I got this job because during the pandemic, I was on a virtual panel with Mirna Valerio, who, shout out to Myrna, love her, there was a film made about her that was supposed to be following her journey tackling this big race. I forget the name of the race. But along the way, anti-Black and anti-fat comments, so many of them came up, that the nature of the film changed, and it went from just celebrating her and showing this journey to showing how not only is she training for this race and taking on this epic adventure, she is also dealing with anti-Black racism and anti-fatness.
So, the producer of that film is Sarah Menzies. So, I moved to Seattle in January of 2021, in April of 2021, Sarah Menzies emailed me and asked me if I ever wanted to host my own TV show. Because she now had this role at Cascade PBS building original shows and thought that I could be a good host. Now, little did she know, I grew up wanting to be on The Real World. I actually auditioned.
Shelby Stanger:
That's amazing.
Alison Mariella Désir:
I auditioned for the show, but I realized at the audition it was like the only people they cast were ridiculous people. You had to be really-
Shelby Stanger:
You had to have a lot of drama.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Exactly. And so that wasn't me. So, when she asked me this, I was like, "Are you kidding me?" Literally my whole life. So, I started thinking about what the premise of my show would be. And what it is, it's I am meeting with BIPOC in the outdoors and telling the story of the way that they're reclaiming space in the outdoors. We often see imagery and storytelling that prioritizes and centers white people, but in truth, Black and Brown people have been in the outdoors since time immemorial. And many of the sports, many of the activities that people engage in the outdoors were built by Black and indigenous people. So, it's awesome.
Shelby Stanger:
Like surfing.
Alison Mariella Désir:
Surfing, exactly. Horseback riding. I mean, Black people have been horseback riding forever, and hiking, all of these activities that people tend to associate with whiteness. And so, the show tells the stories of these people, it tells a little bit of the history, it tells really why there are so many fears by Black and Brown folks of being in the outdoors, despite always being in the outdoors. We also have suffered a lot of hardship in the outdoors. So, my role, my hope is to show that the outdoors are still for us, and to normalize us in the outdoors. If it's not surprising to see Black and Brown people in the outdoors, hopefully that leads to more acceptance and support.
Shelby Stanger:
What was one of your favorite shows you recently worked on, or that's coming up?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Okay. I participated in rallycross. Rallycross is high speed motor car racing, something that on the list of white people, this is tip top of the list. Okay? I had never heard of it... There's a list, there's a very long list. And so, I saw somebody post on Instagram about rallycross, and I was like, "What is this thing?" So, I found out that she's actually my neighbor, they're married, they created this organization called the Northwest Rally Association, and they're committed to bringing people into rallycross who otherwise wouldn't be there. So, I got to do some car racing... Rallycross is different than other racing because it takes place on dirt. And so, that means that you can... I don't even know all the language, so forgive me if you're listening and you're a rallycross person. But you can take one, you can race and then the ground will shift underneath you.
So, whatever you did that first time, when you approach it again, because it's gravel and dirt, it's not the same course, things have shifted. So, it's very much like you have to be very mindful. If you're thinking about the mistake you just made, you're going to keep making mistakes. So, as you're racing, you're thinking quickly, you're trying to anticipate, something happens, okay, let it go. You always have to be thinking about that present moment, and I love it.
Shelby Stanger:
In your PBS series, Alison travels all over the Pacific Northwest to interview outdoors people from historically marginalized communities. Hosting the show is rewarding, but it's just one of the projects that Alison is working on. She's currently writing another book, she has a trail running podcast, and she just organized a race event called We Out Here. Even though she's busier than ever, Alison is still making time to get outside and run. It looks a little different today than it did when she was younger, but in many ways, her relationship with movement feels more joyful than it ever has. How do you run today? Do you go out and you run a 5K every day? Are you a trail runner now?
Alison Mariella Désir:
Yeah, I mean, I am at a point in my life where I am not fixated on a particular routine or doing the same thing every day because I can't. One, you've heard all the jobs I have, so my schedule is all over the place. Two, I have a son, I have a husband, I have a lot of travel. And so, what I try to do is move as much as I can during a week. And for some people that might not work, they might be like, "I need to know tempo Tuesday, and long run Saturday." But for me, that means some days I go out for a walk with my weighted vest, other times I'm doing strength training at home, I do a lot of Pilates classes, and yeah, I try to run some... It's usually around 20 to 25 miles a week, but if it doesn't happen for a certain week, it's because something else was going on or I needed rest.
So, I'm not in a competitive phase of my life, I'm not running races trying to PR. But in terms of trail running in Seattle, we are so lucky because there's just so many beautiful trails everywhere. So, one of my favorite places to run is Discovery Park. Discovery Park has forest and beach and every beautiful view. I try to go to places now that I'm a parent also, where if I'm going out, my husband and I will often, we'll take turns. So, I'll go out for a trail run while my husband plays with my son at the playground, and then we'll switch. And road running, usually when I'm road running, I just step right outside of my house and see how far I can go. And I live in a very hilly part of Seattle, so there's always a hill workout involved.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. If little Alison, who is in this job that she hated, could see Alison today, what do you think would surprise her most?
Alison Mariella Désir:
That's a really good question. I think she would be surprised at how willing I am to try new things. Because a lot of the things that I do now for my show or just in general now living in the Pacific Northwest are things that were completely beyond my imagination. Things I had never heard of, things that I had never seen. For example, surfing, I don't know anybody who surfs, well, until moving here. But surfing was not a thing that was six degrees of separation and I knew someone, nobody in my life had ever surfed. Nobody in my family has ever surfed. And so, being willing to do things that are terrifying, I think Alison would be like, "Are you crazy?"
Shelby Stanger:
Did you try surfing?
Alison Mariella Désir:
"Why are you doing that?" Yeah, I've tried surfing, I've tried rock climbing, another thing I thought I'd never do.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh yeah. Terrifying.
Alison Mariella Désir:
I mean, another preview of season five of Out and Back is I'll be going elk hunting. I will not personally be shooting an elk, but I'm going elk hunting with a Black hunter, who, his goal is to become a huntervore where he only eats the meat that he hunts for sustainability, right?
Shelby Stanger:
Cool. That's cool.
Alison Mariella Désir:
And Alison on the East Coast definitely would never have entertained that idea. But I've learned so much about the importance of hunting and sustainability and conservation. So, yeah, young Alison would be just completely, "Girl, you're lost, what are you doing?"
Shelby Stanger:
I think she'd be proud.
Alison Mariella Désir:
I think she'd be proud too, but I think she'd be a little bit like, "You've kind of lost it."
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, I love it. Okay. So, you've clearly had more than one wild idea, you've had many wild ideas, and you've turned them all into reality, which is so cool. And you've created wild ideas for a lot of other people. So, what advice do you have to someone who either wants to build community or have and pursue and ideally finish their wild idea?
Alison Mariella Désir:
I think the most important thing is that you get really intentional about your why, right? Because if you think about me showing up for six months all by myself, I really believed that what I was doing could help other people because it helped me. And whenever I doubted it, I remembered that I was very, very depressed, didn't leave my house before I started running. And that why really grounded me when nobody showed up. It wasn't about my ego then... I mean, I did sort of think everybody hated me. But I still thought this is so important that it's a calling.
So, I think your why is really important. I think starting without having the full plan, week by week, I was learning what I should be doing. I was making mistakes and I was failing fast, I was iterating. And none of what I've started has ever started with a business plan, for better or for worse, I have just known that something was important and that it needed to exist in the world.
Shelby Stanger:
To keep in touch with Alison, you can find her on Instagram @AlisonMDesir. That's A-L-I-S-O-N M-D-E-S-I-R. She also recently started a Substack called, Running While Black, and you can learn more about her on her website, www.alisonmdesir.com. We'll link to her book, TV show, podcast, the organizations that she started, and more in the show notes. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber, our executive producers are Palo Mottola and Joe Crosby. Thanks again to our partner, Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.