When Vanessa Garrison and T. Morgan Dixon met—back when they were both college students in L.A.—they realized how different they actually were. For one, Dixon grew up athletic, and Garrison…did not., “My family spent almost every weekend watching horse racing at the track. In high school, I participated in one trail run where I came in dead last—they had to go out there to tell me it was over and bring me back.” says Garrison.

But Garrison and Dixon were aligned in many other ways—for instance, as fans of poet Nikki Giovanni and rapper Tupac Shakur. And most important, they were connected by a passion for community building and Black women’s health. “We were struggling with things like how to have so-called leisure time or self-care and not feel guilty about it when your families have worked themselves to the bone to provide for you,” says Garrison. “I grew up in such a poor household that pleasure and joy seemed like luxuries,” says Dixon. “It’ s no wonder that nearly two out of three Black women participate in little leisure-time physical activity.”

Garrison and Dixon’s many conversations led them, in 2010, to found GirlTrek, now the country’ s largest public-health nonprofit aimed at African American women and girls.

Since its inception, more than 160000 women have taken the “GirlTrek pledge,” in which they vow to make time for themselves and walk in their neighborhoods for at least 30 minutes a day—and encourage their friends and loved ones to follow suit. “Walking is a proven medical intervention, and we know that loneliness and isolation can be as deadly as cigarette smoking,” says Dixon. “So why not have a physical fitness intervention that also creates community?”

The organization even aims to increase awareness of their historical foremothers：Last March, ten GirlTrek national staffers walked 100 miles of the Underground Railroad, which was used by black slaves to escape into free states and Canada. “If Harriet Tubman could walk her way to freedom, then surely we can walk our way to better health.” Garrison adds.

The first time I realized that I had a love for sports competitions was during the Field Day in elementary school. Small for my age, and more of a bookworm than a sports enthusiast, I had suffered that special humiliation of being picked last for various gym teams. The Field Day, which focused on individual skills, was different. In the Softball Throw event, I got my first taste of sporting victory. Credit goes to the example of my first coach, my father. He lifted weights every morning at home. He bought us all baseball gloves and hats, and in the warm months, we spent hours playing catch. Come fall, our backyard football games began with passing practice.

Once I got to sixth grade and switched to private school, our entire student body was assigned to either the Red or the White team. Throughout the year, we competed against each other in various games and exercises for points. I eventually became president of The Committee of Games, accelerating (加速) my competitive fever. However, in girls’ sports games at my school, I was no star. I also played on the field hockey team and the basketball team. School sports did not bleed into the weekends, as they do today, but at home, playing tennis, skating, skiing and biking were simply normal things we did. During break time, magazines were also quite popular for us teens. These regularly featured articles on physical exercise. Somehow, my college roommate and I took up the habit of completing Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) exercises every day, a practice that continued into my marriage, when we had no spare funds to use to join a gym.

So, though it shocks some of our friends, that early foundation evolved in adulthood into a sports and fitness focus, considered essential even on vacation. I still love reading and the arts, too. As far as I’m concerned, life is the richest with my feet in both worlds.

It can be incredibly difficult to encourage ourselves to go for a run during winter, particularly when it’s wet and windy outside. But new research has found that even a super-quick run could have great health benefits. In fact , it seems that just a 10-minute session will not only make us feel better, but could actually improve brain health, too. Now, we all know that exercise can improve mental and physical health in many ways.

But when it comes to mental well-being, there’s been relatively little research done on the specific benefits of running, compared with other physical activities, such as cycling. So this was something put to the test during a recent study. Researchers from University of Tsukuba in Japan asked participants (参加者) to run on a treadmill (跑步机) for just 10 minutes. They then had to take a Stroop Color and Word Test which is used to measure reaction time in brain processing. Results showed there was a highest point in self-reported pleasure and an increase in degree of activity of the brain.

In other words, runners were found to have an increase in blood flow in the part of the brain that’s associated with dealing with functions and controlling mood (情绪). Researchers then compared these results to a similar study on cycling, which also showed improved cognition (认知), but no mood improvement. Therefore, it seems various types of exercise can make us feel differently.

The authors noted, “Given exercise is medicine, the effects of drugs differ depending on the type of drug, and different types of exercise such as running and cycling should be observed to have different effects on mental health and brain functions as well.”

So pushing ourselves to get outside for a run really will make us feel better, probably more than other fitness activities. And these findings show that we don’t necessarily need to do a lot of exercise to feel the benefit of it