Rio Lakeshore is a competitive runner and advocate who brings a unique blend of mindfulness and perspective into the running community. Yet, for Lakeshore, running started as a means of transportation.

As a child, Lakeshore’s mom moved them away from the perils of Inglewood to the relative suburban safety of Apple Valley. His mother still worked in the city and spent 6+ hours commuting daily, forcing Lakeshore to find his own way to get around.

“I ended up running to school or practice and I just tricked myself into loving it.

As Lakeshore continued running, what was once a necessity slowly evolved into something more profound. He didn’t realize it at the time, but he began to treat running as a form of meditation – a daily practice.

It wasn’t until years later, when Lakeshore read the likes of Mike Spino, George Mumford and others in the space, that he realized he had unknowingly been tapping into this mindfulness from a young age.

As Lakeshore got older, he began to draw more connections between his running practice and mindfulness – meditating daily, spending time visualizing his runs beforehand, and setting intentions. It was around this time he also began doing ‘Ultra’s’, which are longer than the 26.2 miles of a traditional length marathon.

After years of feeling like the perception of the running community was misrepresented and underappreciated, Lakeshore took to social media in an attempt to show people his world. He shared unique elements of his running practice; such as where his mind goes on these runs, hoping to convey the beautiful side of the sport.

“Running can often come off as technical and bland. I wanted to breathe life into it by showing what it was about running that I love. I try to find that intersection between art and sport.”

Now in East Los Angeles with his partner and two kids, Lakeshore is continuing to share his personal experience with the sport while still running a minimum of 10 miles a day, a distance that has been fondly coined as a “Lakeshore” by his friends within the running community.

While Lakeshore might have qualms with how running is perceived outside of the sport, he’s quick to praise the running community – describing how going to a race now reminds him of going to concerts in his youth, embracing the excitement and comradery and the unique people in the sport.

“Runners aren’t a monolithic culture, there’s a lot of characters in the sport, so for me it’s about looking good and feeling good. The weirder the better. If it can be functional and cool, I’m all for it.”

Lakeshore is also working within his community to bring forth more awareness about the benefits of running. He’s supporting an organization to get a track built at Los Angeles High School, which he pointed out is the oldest high school in LA and yet still only has a dirt track. He’s also working on his own non-profit, Youth to Trail, which will help support kids in lower socioeconomic situations experience trails, running, nutrition, etc.

Lakeshore may have started running out of a necessity for transportation, but it slowly became a necessity for his well-being. Now he’s sharing his experience with running in hopes of helping as many people as possible to discover the joy that he has.