Our Collective Stories

For Mariam Chubinidze, running didn’t start as a lifelong passion or a natural talent. In fact, she spent years believing she wasn’t really a “runner” at all.

When we partner with sponsors, we always want it to feel aligned with our mission. So we spent some time getting to know Carlos, the founder of Thersipo, and learning the story behind the brand. It turns out, his journey with running feels familiar to a lot of our community.

Our partnership with Senita supports participants in the Mental Health Runner Program, helping reduce barriers so more people can experience the connection between movement and mental well-being. Like Still I Run, Senita believes that everyone deserves access to resources that help them feel stronger, more confident, and supported.

For most of her life, Leah Thompson would have never described herself as a runner. In fact, she strongly identified as the opposite. “I hated running,” she says. “I played soccer in high school, and any time we had running drills, I just didn’t enjoy it at all. It definitely didn’t feel like something that was for me.” But life has a way of gently shifting the stories we tell ourselves.

Derrick Adkins’ story doesn’t follow the path you might expect. On paper, it looks like a dream. He’s a 1995 World Champion. A 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist in the 400-meter hurdles. A coach who has worked with elite athletes at Georgia Tech and Columbia University, and mentored Olympic champions like Angelo Taylor and Dalilah Muhammad. But behind the medals and milestones is a story that feels much more human.

Mental resilience often gets framed as something certain people simply “have,” but resilience research shows the opposite. Developing resilience is a dynamic process—something that grows through practice, repetition, and small choices that strengthen your ability to manage stress and handle life’s challenges with more confidence. In running and in everyday life, those small choices matter far more than the huge leaps we tend to admire from the outside.