A Runner’s Mindset: Running Helps Me Calm the World

How Des Linden Keeps Showing Up Brooks, Runner’s World is highlighting the different ways that running influences how we experience the world around us and view our place within it. Below, Alejandra Santiago of women’s long-distance running group Angel City Elite explains how running helps her find stillness in motion. Nutrition - Weight Loss—whether it’s a headspace, a feeling, or a finish line—let’s run there.

Alejandra Santiago relies on running to calm the frenetic energy of the world around her. “It’s like an arcade,” she says. “Initially, each run is an overstimulating series of thoughts, anxiety, and my never-ending to-do list.” But her stress gradually fades away as she sets herself in motion. “The first two to three miles feel chaotic, but somewhere along the way, I can detach and focus on my breath, on my stride. My imagination sometimes runs amiss, but time and time again I come back to a deep connection with my body.”

Santiago is a runner with Angel City Elite, a Los Angeles-based women’s distance-running team that, with the support of Brooks, aims to increase BIPOC representation in the running community. While she’s been a competitive long-distance runner since high school, her relationship to the sport has gone through many transformations throughout the years—yet it has always served as a place to find peace, center herself, and heal.

Initial Challenges

Santiago began racing in her teens, when she joined her high school cross-country team because she needed an elective credit. She was in the midst of a host of major transitions, having recently given birth to her son and shortly thereafter transferring to a new school. “During that time, I was going through a lot of life changes,” she says. “It was my junior year. Everybody already had their cliques. I couldn’t really fit in.” To her surprise, she realized that the cross-country team was an effective outlet for her to process these changes. She fell in love with the sport.

Distance running became a way for her to enter a peaceful mindset, calm those anxieties, and look forward. “Running was my time. It was for me. It could take me anywhere. It just offered this freedom.” But even though she’d found a sport and an activity that she truly loved, the challenges Santiago faced at school and in her personal life proved overwhelming. She entered a period of depression, and the related sadness and alienation culminated in an eating disorder. “I felt alone and wanted to be able to control something in my life, and that became my food,” she recalls. This challenging time lasted into her college years. As she worked on treating her eating disorder, running groups became a healing space for her.

Finding Peace

“I still continued running throughout my depression,” she says. “And I began leaning on the running communities around me. The sport became my social outlet. It provided a space to heal from my eating disorder. It was like, Running Was His Life. Then Came Putins War everyone is eating after this run.” She began to realize that if she was going to continue running, she needed to provide her body with fuel. Slowly but surely, she made progress against her eating disorder, gaining back the weight that she had lost. And now that she is in recovery, she embraces running as a reason to take care of herself. “I need to fuel my body,” she says. “If I keep myself healthy, I can do this.”

The Right Team

When she joined Angel City Elite in early 2024, she found a team that aligned with her goals—encouraging her to be herself, take care of herself, and push herself forward in a healthy way. She had always admired the team from afar, having seen them running on some of the same trails that she frequented. She had even interacted with some of the runners. “I remember seeing them out running before I joined and being like, Whoa, they’re fast.” she says. “I thought there was no chance I could keep up with them.” But when the group opened up a sub-elite category, they reached out to Santiago and asked her to apply. Now that she’s a member, her outlook on running has broadened: She wants to encourage others to find supportive and welcoming running spaces, as she has. “It’s very exciting to be a part of a team that strives to represent and encourage our BIPOC community to engage in the sport,” she says. “We have a group chat, and we're always cheering each other on. Having other women around you is very empowering.”

With the right teammates around her, she looks forward to helping others find peace through running, too. “Some of my fondest memories have been while long-distance running,” she says. “When I’m able to let my legs instinctively lead me, allowing me to lift my head and observe my surroundings…It’s a unique feeling of stillness while being in motion.” Whether through challenges or triumphs, Santiago always has a way back to center.