TRIBES

For most of my life, I thought I was running.

Turns out, I was searching for tribes.

Not tribes in the textbook sense.

Not feathers and smoke signals.

Though after fifty years around ultrarunners, I can report there are some mighty strange rituals involving headlamps, peanut butter tortillas, compression socks, and stories no sane person would believe.

No.

I’m talking about the tribes we collect during a lifetime.

The circles we wander into searching for belonging, identity, challenge, healing, purpose.

Because whether we admit it or not, we humans are tribal creatures.

Always have been.

Even those of us who proudly claim independence.

Especially us.

At twenty-nine years old, when I first started running barefoot on Siesta Key Beach, I didn’t know I had stepped into my first real tribe.

Back then, I wasn’t looking for one.

I was looking for myself.

Funny how often those two things turn out to be the same search.

The early running tribe was simple.

Recreational runners.

5Ks.

10Ks.

People trying to become a little healthier, a little fitter, maybe a little more alive.

But there was something seductive about movement.

Something deeper than fitness.

Movement felt like medicine.

Movement felt like identity.

And before long, the recreational tribe wasn’t enough.

Then came the marathon tribe.

Now, in those days, marathons still had a touch of myth to them.

Twenty-six point two miles meant something.

People didn’t casually wake up one Tuesday and decide to “do one for fun.”

If you told someone you ran marathons, they tilted their head slightly and wondered what childhood wound you were trying to outrun.

Fair question.

The marathon tribe became my people.

Then, naturally — because my motto has always been Don’t limit your challenges; challenge your limits — came the ultrarunning tribe.

Which, frankly, is where weird becomes normal.

Running all day.

Running all night.

Missing toenails.

Talking about dehydration over pancakes as though discussing weather.

Voluntary suffering became community.

And somehow, over time, suffering became joy.

Then came the journey-running tribe.

Crossing states.

Crossing America.

The tribe of motion itself.

By then, running was no longer something I did.

It was something I was.

And eventually, without really noticing when it happened, I became something else too:

A tribe elder.

Not because I was faster.

Certainly not prettier.

And probably not wiser.

Mostly because I had stayed around long enough to remember the stories.

There is value in surviving long enough to become memory.

Every tribe needs someone to say:

“Let me tell you how we used to do this...”

But life has a funny habit of rearranging the furniture.

Sometimes the tribe that saved you at one stage of life no longer fits the next stage.

Or maybe you no longer fit it.

After depression entered my life, after things got darker than I care to romanticize, I realized something surprising:

I needed fewer people.

And more people.

At the same time.

I needed solitude.

Long walks on the beach.

Silence.

The tribe of one.

Healing demanded quiet.

But healing also demanded connection.

I needed coffee after runs.

Laughter.

Shared struggle.

Friends.

My friend Don, back in Sarasota, helped pull me back into movement again — back into local races, local runners, local stories.

Funny thing:

At one point in life I chased marathon finishes.

Later, I found myself simply grateful for company.

Maybe that’s aging.

Or maybe that’s wisdom finally catching up.

Which brings me to one of my favorite tribal moments.

At the Crazy Horse races, I asked a Lakota tribe member to begin the event with a chant and drum rather than a gunshot.

The pacifist in me — perhaps shaped partly by the Army years and partly by simply growing older — had grown tired of races beginning with simulated violence.

The Lakota people had heard enough gunfire when colonizers arrived.

Enough violence in the name of certainty.

Not on my watch.

If we are going to gather people to voluntarily suffer for six hours, twelve hours, twenty-four hours...

Let us begin with rhythm.

Spirit.

Drums.

Movement.

Something older than competition.

Something human.

Which gets me thinking about tribes now.

At eighty, I’m not sure I belong entirely to any single one anymore.

I am still a runner.

Still a veteran.

Still sober.

Still part hippie.

Still a little rebellious.

Still wildly curious.

Still convinced people spend far too little time thinking about what they’re thinking about.

But maybe old age offers a different invitation.

Maybe instead of belonging to one tribe, we become bridges between them.

Story carriers.

Connectors.

Quiet elders.

People who simply nod when someone younger says:

“I don’t know where I belong.”

And answer:

“You probably don’t yet. Keep moving.”

Because that may be the great secret of life.

Not finding your tribe.

But finding the next one.

Again and again.

The challenge tribe.

The healing tribe.

The reinvention tribe.

The grief tribe.

The tribe of people trying to become more fully themselves.

And if you’re lucky — Mr. Lucky, in my case — you eventually realize the best tribe of all may simply be this:

People still willing to grow.

People still willing to question.

People still willing to move.

Because stagnation?

That has always felt like a kind of dying to me.

And movement — whether through miles, ideas, grief, joy, or reinvention —

Well...

Movement has always felt like home.