Fired Up

Melissa Cleary, a 48-year-old firefighter, has logged plenty of exotic miles in her 30 years of running: the Great Wall of China, Africa, Australia, the red rocks of the Arizona desert, even the slope of Mt. Everest.

But some of the greatest runs of her life are far more ordinary, and start just outside the door of her San Diego home. Assigned to the country’s only all-female firefighting unit, Cleary works 24-hour shifts, 10 days a month. And whether she’s coming off a day of rest, an easy shift that allowed for catnaps, or round-the-clock nonstop adrenaline rushes, she starts out with a run every morning. “I just dive right in,” she says.

Part of the reason she can’t live without that morning fix is that it makes her feel good physically, starting with her very first footfall. “I have rheumatoid arthritis, and it’s pretty bad, so I’m achy a lot,” Cleary explains. “Running loosens me up and warms up my joints.”

But perhaps the more important by-product of her running is mental. For Cleary, running doesn’t make the world go away, but it does help put the world—“work, relationships, the war, everything”—in perspective while she runs along the California coastline.

“The other night I had a really difficult patient,” says Cleary, also a paramedic. “An obnoxious, belligerent drunk, and he pushed me. It’s hard not to get aggravated when it’s 2 a.m. and someone is giving you such a hard time, especially when you’re trying to help them. I finished my shift and was out running by the ocean at 8:30 that morning.

“When I run, I come home feeling better about me, better that I took that time for myself. I feel so positive and so energized,” she says. “When I come back from my run, I just know that everything is okay.”