Movement.

“A simple, cheap, effective way to deal with our current moment, good for mental, physical and spiritual health,” says Anthony Fleg, a family medicine doctor with UNM Health and founder of the Running Medicine program.

Add in 80 partners, ranging from health to fitness to social justice organizations and you get movement medicine on a much larger scale.

The Native Health Institute's (NHI) Running Medicine program is hosting Creating Community Through Movement (CCTM) to give people two essential elements during this pandemic – connection to community and movement.

Similar events earlier this year brought together people from across the country and world to move virtually with each other.

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“We hoped for 15 states, 500 peopl, and 1,000 miles total and ended up with 15 countries, 40 states, 750 people and close to 5,000 miles,” says Stacie Hurley, one of Running Medicine’s Directors.

The group expects this week’s event to far exceed those numbers, and will start with a kick-off through Facebook Live to inspire the day’s movement.

“It just didn’t feel right to stop what we were doing at this moment. In fact, the more we thought about it, we felt it was the worst possible time to not continue the work of getting families moving and building a loving, caring community around that movement,” said Fleg.

“We are going to be really clear that we want people to do this in keeping with all of the ordinances around social distancing and avoiding mass gatherings,” he added. “We want this to bring people together in a different way, connected by one purpose and a virtual community that is moving together in many states and places at the same time.”

NHI has a variety of other programs to support the community during this pandemic, including Thankful Thursdays zoom meetings and a virtual Running Medicine (RM) spring season.

RM is a family-oriented walking/running program that began March 2016, taking a unique approach that centers on creating community through exercise. Join the group and learn more about the program by visiting its website.

For more information contact Anthony Fleg at afleg@salud.unm.edu or 505.340.5658