On January 18, 2017, five black women in Harlem took their first steps toward D.C. Talisa Hayes, Marquita Francique, Kim Rodrigues, Alma Nolasco, and Alison D茅sir ran 252 miles as a relay over 60 hours, averaging ten-minute miles. They arrived the morning of the Women鈥檚 March and ascended the steps of the Capitol Building at dawn, having raised more than $100,000 for Planned Parenthood and gained . This year, D茅sir, the leader of that group, is organizing the to raise money for candidates who are campaigning to flip a district.

For D茅sir, 33, running started as a way to cope with depression in her twenties. The experience may have saved her life and prompted her to create , and has unexpectedly transformed her into an advocate for civil rights and mental health.

There were early signs that D茅sir was a natural leader. In elementary school in Teaneck, New Jersey, she was once assigned a project celebrating the town鈥檚 centennial. She looked at photos of people who lived there in the 1950s and 鈥�60s, after Teaneck was named a model town by the U.S. government in 1949. 鈥淚 remember thinking, 鈥榃ow, every single person in this photo is white,鈥欌�� D茅sir says. 鈥淪o my project was about what it really means to be a model town when people of color are excluded from representation. I was in third or fourth grade.鈥�

D茅sir鈥檚 father is from Haiti and her mother from Colombia, and they ensured Alison knew where she came from at an early age. They talked about politics and anthropology as a family, bought her books about the Haitian Revolution, and scheduled reading time. Her parents nicknamed her 鈥減owdered feet,鈥� which comes from a Haitian Creole saying to describe a super-active person鈥攜ou never see her, just her footprints. D茅sir explains that she earned her nickname by being all over the place and never sitting down. 鈥淚 think initially the nickname had kind of a self-destructive connotation.鈥�

At 27, D茅sir was living in New Jersey and having a hard time. 鈥淚 was going through a period of depression. I was unemployed and taking care of my father, who had Lewy body dementia,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 was really suicidal and overdosing on pills.鈥� She often couldn鈥檛 get out of bed and would scroll through social media for hours. That鈥檚 where D茅sir first came across her friend鈥檚 feed. He was training for his first marathon and raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. D茅sir describes him as 鈥渘ot your typical runner. He鈥檚 not a skinny white guy. He鈥檚 an average-size black dude.鈥� She was intrigued by his story and the selflessness of the fundraising component. She signed up for her first race, the Rock n鈥� Roll Marathon in San Diego. For D茅sir, the marathon was a sliver of hope during a dark time. 鈥淚 figured I had nothing to lose,鈥� she says.

Soon she was training for the Rock n鈥� Roll Marathon. Each week, she was doing more than she had ever done before鈥攖he training plan, raising money, having a reason to leave her house all helped her start to feel better about herself and start to discover the mental impact of running.

After completing the race, in June 2012, D茅sir wanted to share the transformative, and in her case life-saving power of running with others. 鈥淚 started getting curious about psychology, sports psychology, counseling psychology. I realized other people actually use running to help with their depression, or after family members have died, after they鈥檝e had divorces,鈥� D茅sir says. 鈥淭his first marathon was what created a shift in my mind about what I was capable of and what was possible through running.鈥�

To learn more about the link between mental health and running, D茅sir went back to school to pursue her second master鈥檚 degree in counseling psychology. She also started a blog called Powdered Feet. But the blog wasn鈥檛 enough鈥擠茅sir craved the human connection she had while fundraising and running with others. In November 2013, she launched Powdered Feet Run Club, a running group that she hoped would serve communities of color, which eventually became .

鈥淣obody showed up for, like, four months,鈥� she says. Every Monday, D茅sir would arrive at the designated meeting spot, and sometimes her best聽friend would join, but no one else. There was more at stake for D茅sir. At the time, there were no other running groups in the area. D茅sir wanted her聽group to聽cater聽to people of color and聽talk about the connection between running and mental health. She knew her group needed to exist and that she was the one to foster this community.

One day, someone did show up. Within a year, more than 100 people had joined, and over the next four years, many of them became committed enough to be captains and pacers. Harlem Run still meets twice a week for free group runs, welcoming 鈥渞unners, walkers, and joggers of all sizes, ages, and abilities.鈥�

D茅sir has run 22 more races since that first marathon, and she鈥檚 garnered recognition from publications like The Root, Runner鈥檚 World, and Self. She never wanted Harlem Run to be centered around her personality, though鈥攊nstead, D茅sir aims to create spaces that genuinely reflect community. 鈥淚 was really just intent on making sure that the most people could experience what running had done for me,鈥� she says. D茅sir鈥檚 Harlem Run community became the foundation she would need to set out on her next conquest鈥攖he presidential election.

When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, she thought, 鈥淚 could sit there and despair, posting angry rants on Facebook with all of my friends about the state of the world, or I could do something.鈥� Then D茅sir had a crazy idea: She鈥檇 run from Harlem, New York, to Washington, D.C., for the Women鈥檚 March as a show of resilience. 鈥淚 had this community in Harlem Run, and I knew that I could use that community to send a message and really impact change after the election.鈥�

She called the only black female ultramarathon runner she knew at the time, , to see if her idea was even possible and if Hayes would run with her. 鈥淲hen she said yes, that鈥檚 when this [Run 4 All Women] really materialized,鈥� D茅sir says. As an initiative of Harlem Run, they launched Run 4 All Women with a GoFundMe campaign, asking for $44,000 in honor of the 44th president, Barack Obama, with the funds going to Planned Parenthood. They blew past their original goal in four days and made $69,000 before they even started the run.

The race was D茅sir鈥檚 first overnight relay, and during three days and nights, she ran more than 80 miles. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e running mileage sometimes in the middle of the night, at 3 a.m., and then you鈥檙e jumping into a van. You can鈥檛 stretch your legs, and at times there were eight or nine of us in the van, and we were constantly being greeted by strangers on the street who were there to support us,鈥� D茅sir says.

After the run, D茅sir found that she鈥檇 become something of an accidental celebrity. Run 4 All Women had gone viral, and in just 20 days they raised more than $100,000 for Planned Parenthood. Publications were reaching out for interviews, and fans were messaging constantly; D茅sir appeared on the Joy Reid Show, and Women鈥檚 Running named her one of . Rather than getting distracted, D茅sir responded to the flood of attention by setting boundaries and made space for solo runs so she could continue doing her activist work.

D茅sir鈥檚 presence is growing: She has more than 10,000 followers on Instagram and started her own podcast called , where she interviews people like , the first runner in a hijab featured in American magazines. In December, D茅sir released a about Run 4 All Women. She remains candid about her battle with depression.

Since the 2016 election, many women and men are stepping into the spotlight for the first time by running for political office, and D茅sir is lacing up her running shoes once again. The goal of Midterm Run is to run 2,018 miles across the country with a team and raise $3,000,000 for 11 candidates across six states. The campaign鈥檚 tagline: 鈥淭hey鈥檙e running for us, so we鈥檙e running for them.鈥�

Her mother still worries, especially after the attention that Run 4 All Women stirred up, that Donald Trump will tweet at D茅sir one day. But what are a few detractors when you鈥檙e willing to run hundreds of miles for your beliefs? When I asked D茅sir what her parents thought about her grade-school presentation on representation in Teaneck, she imagined what they might have been thinking and inadvertently came up with just the right motto: 鈥淪he鈥檚 going to be somebody who continues to cause trouble, but in a meaningful way.鈥�

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