By Jim Simpson
In the 17 years Sharifa Knowles has been with the Gwinnett County School System, she’s taught at Cedar Hill Elementary, Benefield Elementary (a year at the old location and nine years at the current location), spent time as an assistant principal, and most recently was promoted to district coordinator of special education for the county. Life is good, but there were some very rough patches.
In 2011 she lost three shining lights in her life to cancer: her aunt, Shirline “Lorna” Cross; Paulette Dixon, her godmother; and Myrtle Rochester, her maternal grandmother.
Between March and June of that year, all three women who had been there for Knowles all of her life were now suddenly gone. “I felt lost,” said Knowles. “I was not emotionally available for my schoolkids, for my own children, for my husband.”
She was a young mom trying to be there for her girls and be strong but felt she couldn’t take the time to grieve, to find solitude, to make sense of it all.
Running seemed to offer a challenging opportunity. Although she’d run track in high school, specializing in 50m and 100m sprints, she was no good at longer distances, not even a mile.
“After all of this happened, I just needed something, an outlet,” said Knowles. “And I said I’m going to throw myself into training just to help take my mind off stuff. I would occasionally go out for 10-15 minutes, but I wouldn’t call it running.”
She searched online to learn how to train for a half marathon (13.1 miles) and found Hal Higdon’s Half Marathon Training Plan, printed it out and began to train. When she shared the plan with her husband, he asked her if she should start with something shorter like a 5K.
No, she told him, she wanted to do this. “It allowed me some solitude,” said Knowles, “to really process what was going on and have some time to myself because it was hard for me to do that. That was my plan.”
So, on June 23, 2012, the first anniversary of her grandmother’s death, she signed up for the Atlanta Thanksgiving Half Marathon. It was her first race. Ever. After completing the race, she was hooked.
A teacher friend recommended a local running group called Moms Run This Town and added her to their Facebook group. That’s when things really took off. Knowles had found a community, started meeting other runners and learned how to train properly.
Since then she’s run 25 half marathons, four full marathons, multiple 5Ks and 10Ks, and this July 4th she’ll run in her sixth Peachtree Road Race. Her husband runs the annual event with her, but she says, “He doesn’t love it. He just does it to humor me.”
Last year Knowles became an Atlanta Track Club Ambassador, volunteering at expos and races, and teaching others the benefits of running. For the Peachtree’s 50th Anniversary this year, she was asked by the club how she got into running. Her answer, “I used it to help me heal after some pretty devastating losses,” got her on the cover of the club’s magazine, Wingfoot.
In that article, she talks about the three women she lost. “I think about how they saved me. I often think of the lessons they taught me and the memories that we shared. I can definitely feel them cheering me on. They are my angels and are always with me.”
