The Hodgepodge

Time to read: 8-12 minutes

A year later, and I’ve been horrendously overdue for an update to my website. After a paid writing assignment last summer, I noticed myself writing less for expression, and more for validation. Moving away towards validation has been a big motif for me this past year, and so I return here because I want to write for the sake of writing again. Because humans have always filled their time with creativity. Because everyone has something unique to say. Because my mind never stops running, which is a big reason for why I have subjected myself to long-distance running on-and-off for twelve years now. 

My previous four marathons have taken place during moments in my life where I had less community, and I didn’t share as much of myself with those beautiful beings in the world who show me curiosity. So I wanted to use this blog post to encapsulate some of those questions I was frequently asked over the last 5 months, and also as as a reflection. Running a marathon one time is often considered a bucket list item for most folks. Running it twice is proving that it wasn’t a fluke. But why five times? Even I was surprised with the answer when I started connecting the dots and looking at who I was and where I was since my first training cycle in 2017. 

Question 1: How Long Is A Marathon?

I suppose there are people out here that are calling any running race a marathon, because a number of people that asked me assumed it was 3.1 miles. That’s a 5k honey. A marathon is 26.2 miles. Why that distance? The origin story/myth is based upon an ancient Greek soldier who ran from Marathon to Athens to tell his homies that their side won a battle. That was about 25 miles. The marathon was introduced into the Olympics at that distance in 1896, but in 1908 at the London Olympics, it was extended to 26.2 miles so the Royal Family could have a prime spot at the finish line in their fancy royal box. The more you know.

Question 2: How Many Miles Do You Run Per Week?

This varies, and I honestly took a lighter approach to my training cycle this time around. I moved near Forest Park (in Portland OR) in January, and now live at the top of a six-hundred foot hill. It’s essentially impossible to run more than two miles without taking on that elevation. Since most of my runs were composed of big hills and trail runs in the forest, I chose to run just three days a week instead of my usual four to avoid additional fatigue and potential for injury. The training cycle gradually increases mileage over the course of four-to-five months. 

At the beginning, I was covering about ten miles a week with a five mile run serving as the “long run”. During the middle of training, a twenty mile week was comprised of two five mile runs for the shorter midweek exercises, and the long run was ten miles. At the peak, I was doing around 30 miles in a week. 7-8 miles on Tuesday and Thursday, and 19-20 miles on Saturday. The last two weeks before the race, I taper down to give my legs a chance to recover from the stress. However, this gives the mind a chance to hyper-analyze any perceived pain and to doubt capabilities. It happens every time, and I know better by now than to listen to the fears.

Question 3: What Do You Think About?

As an individual prone to anxiety and rumination, running gives me a predictable container for my incessant thoughts. Often, I am just replaying conversations or thinking about how I could have approached a situation differently. Sometimes I am simply reflecting on my day or week without judgement, simply observing thoughts before they float away. As the training cycle progresses and the time spent running grows longer and longer, my mind starts to wander accordingly. Two of my predictable places to go are imaginary stories, in different settings. 

In the first, I am similar to the Greek soldier, but with a nobler purpose. The village I live in possesses the only medicine people around, and my task is to deliver precious antidotes to neighboring communities. Of course, the medicine has an expiry ticking, and must be carried with good form as to not disturb the volatile chemistry. 

In the second, often when I am listening to electronic music, I am a robot who has been held captive in a testing facility and I have finally awoken to the horrors and managed to escape. The bleeps and bloops of the music correlate to my robotic limbs working for the first time in ages, my pistons firing, oils and liquids coursing through my synthetic veins. The lab is pretty much always on the verge of exploding and naturally I make it out every time. 🙂 This one has been so helpful for late-game motivation and correcting my form, that I got a thigh-sized tattoo of this daydream persona in 2018. 

Other times I am not really thinking a whole lot! There is always something around to observe, no matter the season, and I like to take these moments as opportunities to practice meditative mindfulness and gratitude for the seasons changing as the weeks go on. 

Question 4: How Did You Start Running?

If I had a dollar for every time that someone heard that I run, and then proceeded to tell me that they did cross-country in high school but stopped after that, I could probably have a few pairs of comfy socks. My origin story however, was in college. I worked full time and went to school full time nearly all of my years in college, but there was one semester where I: did not work, only took online classes, and moved in with my grandparents to save money for an eventual out-of-state move from Texas to Colorado. 

I was quite bored out of my mind and wanted a way to get out of their house and to burn off stress without needing to spend much money. A pair of Nike Free Runs were $60 at the time, and I figured the upfront cost would pay for itself if I stuck with it. It was initially miserable running on rural backroads in Texas in the heat, but once I found the quiet places and learned when to time my runs to stay more comfortable, I fell in love with the act of putting one foot in front of the other. Worries about the future seemed to fade away, and I developed a sense of confidence that I had never known before in the physical realm. 

I was the slowest person on my 8th grade basketball team. I was laughed at in the weight room the year before for being so weak. I quit athletics on day three of high school after realizing it was an environment where toxic masculinity was celebrated. (A little foreshadowing for you there). 

The first time I ran five miles that spring, I felt like I was on drugs. This was quite exciting as someone who had a hard time finding weed. That runners high hit me, and I wanted to know what else was on the other side. Like most drugs, literal or metaphorical, the high has worn off for me at this point, and I attribute a lot of those early experiences to the euphoria of achieving a new milestone. 

Question 5: What Do You Eat?

Running gels for anything over 10 miles. They are essentially pure sugar to recover lost glucose. Otherwise, I don’t modify my diet too much, but I do have to eat a lot more since I am sometimes burning a days worth of calories in a single run. I also have a hard time eating for hours after a run. Something about jostling my innards for hours and sucking down weird fake food kind of ruins my appetite.

Question 6: Where Were Your Other Four Marathons?

I’ll get to the backstory on these in the next/final question, but I’ll keep it simple here.

• The first was in the strange microcosm of imagined family vacation utopia: Myrtle Beach, SC. (2017)
• Number two took place in my home at the time, Milwaukee, WI. (2018)
• Number three entailed another journey to a tourist destination: Mackinac City, MI (2021). Prior to the most recent one, this was my favorite race, a 26.2 mile trail run through the woods on the shores of Lake Huron with less than 100 participants. Knee-high puddles, miles with no one in sight, and being mentally present to avoid tripping over roots and rocks for over four hours was particularly memorable.
• Number four was my slowest attempt, in Bend, OR (2024). 

Question 7: You Are Insane. Why Do You Keep Doing This?

Like I mentioned in the beginning, I originally thought that the first one was because I wanted to prove something to myself after running a couple half marathons during college. However, after a lot of therapeutic work and self reflection this year, I believe that I’ve uncovered an interesting pattern in when these training cycles have occurred. 

My first time to spend months in pain and changing my body followed shortly after wearing a dress and makeup in public for the first time in Nashville. 2018 was a period of time where I came out as bisexual after a four-year relationship ended, but still felt frustrated with the fact that label did not lead to being treated socially, how I felt internally. 2021 was a particularly confusing time for me, which led to me to seek more time alone. The year prior during the pandemic allowed me to dig deeper into myself without the negative feedback that society often throws at AMAB people presenting with more femininity. 2024 was after a move to Portland, and the two challenges I was experiencing at the time — A partner losing attraction to me the more I presented femininely, and a progressive culture still perceiving me as male despite my best efforts.  

I think that I have (subconsciously) choose to run these “extreme” distances as a socially acceptable form of self-harm, and as a way to manage my unhappiness with myself, especially in relation to gender dysphoria.

I wasn’t aware at the beginning of this year when I started running the trails of Forest Park that I was still unsatisfied with myself. The medications I was on at the time did a great job of covering that up, along with the fact that I was surrounded by a loving community. But as I progressed further and further along with my therapist, and eventually stopped taking those medications, I felt something was still missing. As I sit here now, nearly a month into HRT, calm and content as I have ever felt and sleeping consistently well for the first time in years, I think I figured out what I was running from and what I was pushing myself towards.