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The Runfromdivan Project

Back in december 2019, on a group run organised by Runaway shop in Milan (Via Ugo Bassi, 22) I met a guy named Artem, who’s also obviously passionated about running. And I discovered some time after our run, that he created a curious project called Runfromdivan. This project is based mainly on Instagram as a page (@runfromdivan) and a Strava club (https://www.strava.com/clubs/runfromdivan)

But I’ll let him introduce it to you:

Hi I’m Artem and I got addicted to running about 3 years ago and about 2 years ago my long-time best friend Roman convinced me to set up a joint Instagram profile where we would post sport-related stuff that we try to do to motivate one another. And so we did, each one from his city, Roman from Moscow and me from Milan, I stuck with running and he went crazy mixing gym, wrestling, MMA, boxing, swimming and a bit of running as well.

The runfromdivan became our moto right away and initially took form of a simple hashtag. The meaning behind is quite straightforward and for me personally represents exactly how I got into running as I’m sure millions of people did. Me in my mid-30s realizing I should be better moving and not laying on the couch, or divan as used in many languages, and at one point just started actually running away from divan. The concept is simple –  if you want to run just start doing it – at whatever time you can (for me it was 11 pm.), in whatever minimally suitable clothes you already have and for whatever time you manage at a time. The credit for the concept goes to Jocko Willink, the master of self-discipline (check out his Instagram, he never got up later than 4:30 in like last 20 years), former navy seal and now author of books “Extreme ownership” and “Discipline equals freedom”. So he says “if you want to stop eating sugar – stop eating sugar”.

So runfromdivan is a simple philosophy projecting the idea of getting up and moving around, it can be well represented by cycling from divan, swimming from divan, etc. It has no limits and makes sense to whoever wants to give it a try, not just pure beginners. Everyone has their own “divans” known as comfort zones. Take someone how does trail running for long time, for example, he or she may quite easily avoid signing up and training for months for a 100 km race, but going after it would mean running further from their famous “comfort zone”, hence running from their divan.

I set up a runfromdivan running club on Strava and on Instagram, absolutely everyone can join, especially who feels the whole vibe and knows what divan they want to keep running from. For the future our wish is to gradually grow the community, hopefully getting people from very different places around the world joining, having fun posting photos with hands raised and holding the runfromdivan sign (yes, just like the dude with the sign).

It’s really cool to see how people are putting their mental and physical strengths in action every week, many every single day, getting inspiration, sharing smiles as we all run from our divans for good.

I guess there’s nothing left to say, other than to go join the club, follow them on instagram, and share your #runfromdivan pictures.

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