DALLAS - When Angie Webb looks at the moon, she sees much more than an orb in a starlit sky, more than a silver circle at dusk or a cream-colored disc at dawn.
She sees Moon Joggers - runners and walkers in (at last count) 45 states and 40 countries.
Moon Joggers is an Internet running club created by Webb, who moved to McKinney, Texas, last fall, and her sister Ashley Webb, who lives in Utah. It began as their whim.
Each had decided to run 3 miles a day this year - 1,000 miles.
Then they wondered whether they could enlist enough other people to run the distance to the moon - 238,857 miles.
“We thought if we could get 237 other people to run 1,000 miles, we’d get there by the end of the year,” says Angie Webb, 31, who works with special-needs children in Frisco, Texas, while pursuing a master’s in business administration. “We put it on Facebook, and it exploded.”
That was Dec. 1. Within the month, “we had hundreds of people all over the world,” she says.
On May 23, seven months and eight days earlier than scheduled, the runners had accumulated enough miles to reach the moon - were it possible to stretch those miles out end to end like a big measuring tape. When she posted the big news on Facebook, Moon Joggers in Finland, Turkey, Egypt and New Zealand as well as the United States posted giddy congratulations. A British group that runs marathons in sports bras sent excited well-wishes. Individuals posted videos of themselves running that day.
“We landed!” wrote a runner in South Africa.
“Does this mean we’re on the dark side of the moon?” asked someone else. A follow-up post expressed gratitude to Moon Joggers for bringing brightness to that light-deprived area.
“Seriously,” Webb says, “our site blew up.”
Sitting outside a Whole Foods store in Plano, Texas, and listening to her talk, you’d swear a group really did make it to the moon.
“It has changed my life,” says Webb, who is the fifth of eight athletic siblings. “Six months ago, I never imagined all this would happen. It’s always on my mind. Who’s running right now? Where are they?”
There’s the woman, for instance, who posted about being afraid to run the Big Sur International Marathon; Moon Joggers responded with upbeat reassurances that she’d do fine (which she did). And there’s the runner in Utah - a family friend on a Moon Joggers team of sisters - whose 7-year-old son, Adler, has kidney cancer and whose family has no insurance.
“He wears stripes because he says they make him brave,” Webb says. When the Moon Joggers heard about Adler, they began posting online photos of themselves wearing stripes. “Anytime they want to run and wear stripes, it can be for Adler,” says Webb, whose running attire more often than not is striped.
Every month, the Moon Joggers run a virtual race timed to the full moon. They download and print out bibs with a race number and, depending on the fee they pay through the sisters’ website, earn a decal or medal.
Unless you pay to run a virtual race or buy something from their growing online store of Moon Joggers logo T-shirts and caps, becoming a Moon Jogger costs nothing. You just sign up. You can be a Mini Moon Jogger (100 miles in 2013) or a Platinum Moon Jogger (5,000 miles) or pick a distance between.
When you run, you log your miles online, as close to 700 people now do. Each of your miles counts toward reaching a collective destination and then heading home. You’re part of a group, which provides both a comfort and a challenge, Webb says.
“There are times,” Webb admits, “I don’t want to run. I’m tired. But then I think, ‘My Moon Joggers are out there.’ A lot of times, I can see the moon when I run. I run because of them. They’ve inspired me, for sure.”
Once the Moon Joggers reached the moon, they asked to loop its 7,000-mile circumference a time or two. Sure, she said. They did and are on their way home. She hopes to make at least one more trip this year.
“If you can run to the moon,you can do anything else you never thought was possible,” she says. “We’re going to the moon! That gives people permission to dream.”
ActiveStyle, Pages 23 on 06/24/2013