Happy Run returns to downtown Palmer

PALMER — A group of more than 50 people took part in the Happy Run that started at Aktive Soles at the Koslosky Center and ran 5 kilometers before finishing at the Palmer Alehouse Monday night.

The Happy Runs have been put on by Aktive Soles for five years and missed their first scheduled community run during the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March. After a six-week hiatus, the Happy Runs are back in action and bringing families, coworkers and community members together to walk, run, and roll together.

“Everybody’s outside and getting in a good place. No one has to lose out, everybody gets something from it and that feels so nice,” said Leah Allen.

Leah and her husband Duncan ran the Happy Run with their sons Silas and Hayden, their neighbor and her sled dog. Safety measures have been put in place by Aktive Soles to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by community members participating in the Happy Runs by handing out raffle tickets while wearing masks and gloves. The runners are able to take the course at their own pace on their own time at any point on Mondays, but the Allens feel a sense of community in gathering with their friends and family for exercise.

“People aren’t meant to be quarantined from one another and so it fulfills that need of being together and it fullfils the need of exercise and the community,” said Duncan Allen.

Runners do not have to pay to participate in the Happy Runs and can win drawing prizes without being present. The drawings are broadcast on Facebook live at the Palmer Alehouse where the run culminates. Each family pod maintains a distance of 10 feet from the other family pods during the drawings.

“We are very cautiously having this,” said Aktive Soles owner Anne Thomas. “If we can do this as safely as possible then we can continue an existence together.”

For five years, the community of runners that participate in Happy Runs have gathered in the parking lot behind the Koslosky Center and caused a brief disruption in traffic along Alaska Street at 6 p.m., before continuing along the road course. The runs are not races and are not timed, but Thomas said that it is important for the health of the community to have an opportunity to exercise and have fellowship with other people.

“My hope is that we are very focused on community. People have been doing this every Monday for five years. We’ve developed a community and in part of this sort of lock down and pandemic, not only are we concerned about people’s physical health but their mental health and I think some people don’t have a group of friends to go back to so being able to come out side and kind of hang with some people in a distance that you kind of know, I think gets some people out of bed and out of the house and so I think for people’s mental health, for their interaction, for their community and to feel like it’s going to be okay like we’re going to get through this together,” said Thomas.

After the brief disruption in the Happy Runs, Thomas is glad to have the community of runners that have come together for the last five years back at Aktive soles, safely. Thomas is very cognizant of the danger of gathering together, but encourages participants to take their own measures in staying apart from other runners along the course.

“We all have a responsibility and if we can be responsible citizens, we can get through this. So I think it’s and again, there are people out there who don’t have family and who don’t have that group of friends that they can go back to and that’s a lonely existence so if we can be a friend,” said Thomas. “I think people’s purpose and their ability to cope improves if they can be outside and again, it’s not just a gym, a shoe store but it’s a coping tribe.”