Ayesha McGowan achieved her dream, and went from bike-commuting preschool teacher to becoming the first African American woman to become a professional road cyclist.
The Central Park Raccoons, a loose group of cyclists, gather after dark for impromptu races. Anything on two wheels (except electric bikes) can compete.
Drew Reynolds
Jerry Francois is a born-and-raised New Yorker scratch that a born-and-raised Brooklynite. Very little intimidates him.
But in the aftermath of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, when the 25-year-old was shot and killed while out for a run in South Georgia last March, Francois began to fear going out for his nightly runs in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood where he lives.
“It hit me hard,” he tells
Runner’s World. “His life was taken for doing something that I m sure that he just enjoyed to do. It was literally taken away. That was literally his last mile.” Related Stories
Francois worried about being targeted and not making it home to see his first child born. (His wife, Ashley, gave birth to their son, Jaxx, in July.) So he switched his runs to mornings and took to wearing neon in place of his usual black attire.