Every day, an East Lake man wakes up, puts on athletic shoes and runs.
Tom Opdyke, 36, isn’t doing it for his health, he’s doing it to remind local residents of a distant problem.
“It’s really that somebody is thinking about Myanmar. Every day, someone is thinking, raising awareness, raising money, to just try to be supportive of the people in Myanmar who are dealing with this,” Opdyke said.
Opdyke, who lived in the city of Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, and worked in international aid, says running is his form of protest against last year’s military coup that ended Myanmar’s shift toward democracy.
To show support for his former neighbors, and to raise money for the cause, Opdyke is running the equivalent of a 5K race every day. So far, his 5K for Myanmar initiative has raised more than $6,000 that he’s donated to Mutual Aid Myanmar, a volunteer-led organization.
It has been over a year since the coup took control of Myanmar due to what military leaders there claimed was election fraud. The coup jumpstarted mass protests, leading to civil war in the country. According to the BBC, the military used water cannons, rubber bullets and live ammo against residents.
As the coup began last February, Opdyke originally planned to run a 5K every day in March. When the calendar flipped to April, he kept running.
“So yeah, I was like alright, I’ll run for a month and it just started getting worse over there. Like so much worse,” Opdyke said.
The months turned into a year. On Monday after logging more than an estimated 1,100 miles, Opdyke will complete 365 days of personal 5Ks. During a doctor’s visit in November, he was advised to rest for a few days. Instead of running, he burned an equal amount of calories swimming, walking or some other form of exercise.
Opdyke moved to the Atlanta-area from Myanmar in 2020, a year before the coup and weeks before the pandemic. Locally, he works to improve police relationships with communities. He often reflects on memories and friends still in Myanmar, which makes the conflict feel closer to home. He recalled seeing his old Yangon neighborhood on news reports and social media as it became the epicenter of the conflict. The once-peaceful streets he was so familiar with were torn by civil unrest. He has friends and colleagues who were detained and jailed by the military for weeks. All of them have since been released.
Credit: Tom Opdyke
Credit: Tom Opdyke
“Heartbreaking doesn’t cover it,” Opdyke said of the military action against residents. “And then imagine that there are soldiers on that street who are shooting down people, there’s protests on that street, there’s, you know, barricades being put up by (protesters and the) military as well.”
Opdyke will soon stop running every day, but challenges others to run.
“I think my first rest day will be Wednesday, the second of March,” he said.
He directed people to a website that allows them to donate, and sign up for 5K runs, to support the people of Myanmar. Mutual Aid Myanmar and RunSignup helped Opdyke create the website.
In honor of his 365th run, Opdyke will host an event at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Three Taverns Imaginarium in Reynoldstown. The brewery will donate 10% of proceeds to Mutual Aid Myanmar.
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