I coined the term “running rhetorics” and created the theoretical framework, that bears the same name, to explore the embodied, rhetorical, and phenomenological everyday lived experience of women runners. This isn’t just about running–it’s about what running means, communicates, and persuades.
Running rhetorics is the study and practice of how meaning, identity, and agency are created through the embodied act of running. It names the two-way communication between mind and body that emerges in motion: the body “speaks” through sensation, rhythm, and endurance, while the runner interprets, negotiates, and responds
Through this lens, running becomes a rhetorical act-a site of meaning-making, identity formation, and emotional processing. It is a language. A form of resistance. A space where hegemonic cultural narratives about gender, discipline, health, trauma, and inclusion are both reinforced and resisted.
Core tenants of my philosophical approach are:
- Running is a metaphor for life and can be studied as a microcosm for understanding broader concepts
- Every ‘body’ can run: There is no place for body-shaming or fatphobia in women’s running.
- I support ALL women runners and I’m an Athlete Ally; I encourage you to sign the Athlete Ally Pledge, which supports equal access, opportunity, and experience in sports — regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
- Running can serve as a place of Quiet Activism
What makes Running Rhetorics different?
Unlike traditional sport studies or physiological models that focus on performance metrics, Running Rhetorics centers:
- The phenomenology of lived experience in running – how running feels and what it means beyond traditional performance metrics
- The rhetorical power of embodiment — how the moving body itself creates meaning
- The vernacular rhetorics of everyday runners, especially women whose identities have been historically marginalized in sport
- The way running provides women tools for healing, agency, and identity formation beyond traditional cultural constraints.
- Running as a means to process trauma stored in the body
Why it matters-Especially for Women
Running rhetorics centers the experience of women – trans and cis – who have been sidelined, silenced, or scrutinized in athletic spaces. For us, running isn’t a ‘recreational activity’–it’s a reclamation
It’s where trauma is metabolized
Where rage becomes our rhythm
Where we remember our power
In a culture that polices women’s bodies, running offers an opportunity for autonomy-and Running Rhetorics gives us the language to understand it
A feminist, embodied, rhetorical framework
The framework is still evolving-through research, storytelling, embodied inquiry, and the miles I log with women around the world. As the creator of Running Rhetorics, I continue to expand and refine the theory to reflect what running reveals about identity, communication, space, place, and power.
Running Rhetorics is more than a theory.
It’s movement
It’s resistance
It’s meaning-made mile by mile.