Running

I started running in college because I had an eating disorder and wanted to lose weight. I ran myself into the ground as literally as I could: I had shin splints in both legs and tendonitis anywhere I could get it. I was bulimic and got Tums for my acid reflux, but I was so hungry I ate handfuls at a time. I had blood in my pee after running on the treadmill once. I have no idea what that was about.

I found an online fitness forum and decided I wasn't just too fat, I was also too skinny, so I started lifting weights. I learned how to squat and deadlift and went to the gym at 6 AM every day in the pitch black and freezing cold. I made friends with the old professors who were the only other people at the gym that early: Carl the Egyptologist and some guy whose name I don't remember who offered to get me a job at the Apple store because I told him I studied computer science.

I started eating more, and I gained weight back, but I kept running. Running started as a punishment, but it became the only part I liked. I felt untethered when I ran. A lot of people I went to school with shared an experience: we got to college because we were exceptional, but then we were surrounded by people who were all as talented as we were. Running was the one thing I had that no one else I knew did. I ran places no one I knew had been, and I didn't want to share it. I'm sure I was an asshole about it.

After college we moved to Michigan and I started running on weekends with a group from a local running store. I had never really run with people before and I learned the rules, like how close you should run to each other and how the pack becomes a singe-file line when a car passes. There's a really free and un-self-conscious way of talking on long runs; you're isolated with near-strangers for 2 hours, blasting snot onto the ground, and you talk about anything. I met a lot of older men, a bridge between me and people my parents' age. It was the first time I saw an older person and thought "oh, that'll be me someday."

One of the things people always ask on long runs is "what are you training for?" and I never had an answer. They'd tell me I was fast, so I should race. I didn't put it together at the time, but I think I was afraid racing would spoil the joy of running. I'm a naturally competitive person, which has ruined a lot of other hobbies I've had. Running had become a refuge for me and I didn't to risk that.

We moved to Portland, to a house 2 blocks from a public track, and I showed up one night and joined a track club. I'm gifted to be a good runner and to look like one, so I fit in quickly. Running a track workout was like holding my hand over a candle. I rarely felt that close to the edge, and I liked it. The fast group was all marathon runners, and they invited me to come run long workouts with them on Sauvie Island on the weekend. At some point I realized I'd effectively been doing their marathon training block with them, and that I could run a race I was proud of. I ran a marathon, then another a year later, and qualified to run in Berlin this September.

There's a really shitty attitude about running that you hear from shoe commercials, Instagram reels, and your uncle who runs. They all say "running is so easy, all you need is a pair of shoes." It ignores how much running asks of your body, the stress on the ligaments in your feet and tendons in your legs and all the muscles we don't think about. So you expect it to be easy, then something hurts, and you run through it because you want to change your body and running seems like the answer. Then it only hurts more, it doesn't get easier, and you hate running more.

I started running as a way to only subtract, to undo food I had eaten or lose weight, and it was a one-way ticket to peeing blood in the gym bathroom. Some time in the past 10 years I accepted that running is hard, and that if I want to run, I can't do it in spite of my body. Running makes demands I have to repay with food and rest and patience, but the more I've given to running the more it's given me. I've gotten to run beautiful places, meet people I would never otherwise meet, and have rare and strange physical experiences. When I started caring about the actual running part of running, I stopped counting calories, then stopped weighing myself, then stopped pinching the fat around my stomach.

Here are some more pictures of beautiful things I've taken while running!