Running Is Inherently Political — and It’s About Time TikTok Has the Conversation

Many people think running is as simple as grabbing your favorite pair of shoes, finding a stellar playlist, and heading out the door. We hate to break it to you, but that’s not exactly true. The activity has been rooted in activism issues like equality, climate change, and racial justice for decades — and a recent conversation on TikTok has highlighted the intersection of running and politics yet again.

Recently, running influencers on the app — like Kate Glavan, FinnDoingTikTok, MakOnTheRun, and Natalie Beall — have made videos criticizing other prominent runtokers who support MAGA policies. Their reasoning? Running is inherently political, and participating in the activity should entail caring about the health and safety of your community and the land on which you run.

“As someone who is an ultrarunner, public land is very important to me. That’s where I train, that’s where I race, and it should be important to you as well if you do those things,” Beall says in a Feb. 22 video. “You should also be concerned about the air quality, which is often a problem [in Utah].”

Beall’s video comes on the heels of the Trump administration laying off thousands of US Forest Service and National Park Service employees, which could increase the risk of forest fires and make it harder for the public to enjoy the outdoors. What’s more, President Trump signed an executive order in the beginning of February in support of selling off and privatizing public land. This “would deprive Americans and local economies of the access to nature and resources that sustain them,” according to the Center of American Progress.

Not to mention, climate change is “expected to worsen air pollution, which can pose health risks like heart and lung diseases,” per the US Environmental Protection Agency. And President Trump signed an executive order in January to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty to combat climate change.

In a Feb. 23 video, Glavan talks about a few other aspects of the intersection between running and politics. “Women couldn’t even run marathons in very recent history … when you think about climate change, when you think about access to clean air, when you think about all the federal layoffs that are happening in the National Parks Service, who has access to go outside, when you think about indigenous land, trails, and nature. And very few women and minorities feel safe running outside. [Running] is a very political issue.”

It’s true: Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon in 1967, and she got a tremendous amount of pushback. And to this day, a majority of women (92 percent) don’t feel safe running alone, according to a 2023 Adidas survey, due to the murders of women like Eliza Fletcher and Mollie Tibbetts.

Not to mention, Black Americans cite safety concerns as a barrier to outdoor activity, according to a 2021 research article in Preventive Medicine Reports. (Let’s all remember Ahmaud Arbery, who was murdered while out on a run in 2020, and the continued harassment and hypersexualization of Black women runners.)

The TLDR: It’s impossible to separate running from politics. Deprioritizing climate concerns and the lives of women and people of color, for instance, don’t align with caring about runners or the land on which they run. And I, for one, would love for us all to get on the same page.