Pulse
On the Run
Busy with work and family, one physician finds her commute the perfect time to fit in exercise.
It’s 8:30 on a March Thursday morning and Anne Pereira, M.D., is leaving for work. But instead of gathering her briefcase and loading her two daughters into the car to drop them at preschool before heading to Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), where she serves as program director for the internal medicine residency program, Pereira dons her Adidas, straps on her backpack, straps 4-year-old Grace and 2-year-old Rose into a Burley stroller, and hits the road running.
Forty-five minutes and 3.5 miles later, with the girls settled at school and the Burley safely stashed there, Pereira arrives at the hospital ready to shower, change, and begin her day.
The run from the home in the Uptown area of Minneapolis that Pereira shares with her daughters and husband, Mark, has become part of her routine since moving back to the Twin Cities from Boston in 2003. She and Mark, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, run to or from work as often as possible. “In the winter, one of us drives to work and the other drives home,” Pereira says, explaining that they park their Toyota Rav4 halfway between HCMC and the university and that the one who runs in the morning takes the car to pick up the girls on dark, winter afternoons. “In summer, we’re more likely not to drive.”
Long-Running Habit
For Pereira, commuting on foot has long been part of her lifestyle. During the four years she and Mark lived in Boston, they had no car and walked from Brookline, where they lived, to the Longwood Medical Area, where they worked. “Boston is a great city, if you don’t drive in it,” she says. “So we walked a mile and a half to work, and most of that walk was together.”
When they moved to Minneapolis, they wanted to live close enough to their workplaces to be able to walk or run to them. Pereira, 38, who grew up in Edina, began running with her father when she was 12 years old. She has done marathons, although she says she hasn’t run that distance in about 10 years. Instead, Pereira takes part in fun runs such as the HCMC Monster Dash, a 5K to raise money for orthopedic research. Her husband ran the Twin Cities marathon last year but is currently nursing an injury.
Today, she runs for exercise, not to train for distance. “This is the most efficient way to do it, and it’s a pleasant way to commute,” she says, adding that running to work takes about 15 minutes longer than driving but is faster than taking the bus.
Observing the City
Pereira’s commute takes her along Hennepin Avenue in Uptown and through Loring Park and downtown Minneapolis. Along the way, she meets a number of bikers, passes a group of elderly Russian men exercising in Loring Park, keeps tabs on the expansion of the Walker Art Center, and watches the progress of condo construction on her way into the downtown.
Pereira says she doesn’t let weather stop her. In mid March, when the Twin Cities received more than a foot of snow on a Monday and 6 more inches the following Thursday, she ran to work both days. “On Monday, the footing was hard. I ran north in the morning so the snow was coming in my face, but it was really beautiful.” She also found that she made better progress than some people in cars. “On Tuesday morning, I had to stop and help someone who got stuck,” she recalls.
She says one of the biggest challenges of commuting by foot is staying organized. Pereira tries to bring changes of clothing to the office on Sundays so she can minimize what she has to carry. “I have all my shoes at work because they’re heavy,” she says, adding that she’s fortunate that HCMC has showers and changing facilities. When she needs to bring work home, she e-mails documents to herself. “I don’t think I’ve had to carry anything that doesn’t fit in a backpack,” she says.
Pereira, who works four days a week and says she runs 80 percent of the time, doesn’t want to break that habit. “The thing I like most is that it separates home and work. I’m relaxed when I get there. If I were driving, I would get frustrated with traffic.”—K.Kiser