My father is a jokester like me.
Breaking the ice through laughter is his way of disarming people. His sense of humor is dry, and the joke rarely lands. There’s always the moment of uncertainty after the delivery.
…And?
Growing up—without fail—if we saw anybody running, he would say, “they’re running for their life.” Then pause and look at me.
Get it?
As a kid, I knew there was a double-entendre buried in there, but the duality was a little too much to register every time. I still knew it was supposed to be funny.
My own journey of running is a bit of a double-entendre itself.
I think I finally get it.
I started running during my final stretch of graduate school, in upstate New York.
Between my marathon to Summa Cum Lade, and the sprint toward a full-time job, I could feel the tension between two lives. I’d only known the stroll of student life, where I’d mastered the flow since grade school. Finding my stride as an “adult,” without much direction, was beginning to be a real question.
In trying to imagine my “new” self, I knew one thing: I didn’t want to be “fat.” The pressures of earning degrees and navigating awkward-gay-social-life had exacerbated nervous- and stress-eating. I’d always been chubby, and I didn’t envision myself being an overweight adult.
I wanted to start my “new” life on a different foot, and part of my fantasy was being fit.
I lived across the street from my school’s sports complex: a giant outdoor area with football fields, a brand-new track, and equipment I’ll never know the use for. The Syracuse football team practiced there, and as an emotional-eating, body-issues, low-confidence guy, “straight jock football HQ” was not a place for me.
This was a place for athletes, and I wasn’t one of them. I had a complex about the complex, but the track seemed to call me. I didn’t really understand nutrition or exercise, but I knew enough to believe running was a path to weight loss. A path to my fit future.
I strategized getting on the track. I studied when it was quiet, and learned when the teams had practice. I used my lifelong observation skills to find a safe time to be there: when the football players weren’t. To be there without judgement of the athlete-type I’d learned to avoid since grade school.
I had a first-generation iPod in hand, white earbuds dangling, listening to David Gray. It was early evening—a safe, empty space in the football schedule—and the sun was setting.
A MILE!
No walking. No stopping. Only running. First time. Ever.
After that first mile and eventually up to 5K, I graduated into actual work. I landed my first corporate job—taking me to San Francisco—where I traded the track for a desk, and running took a hiatus.
Eight-ish years later, in New York City, I was working a new corporate job and living bigger-city life. My days were passed in an office where I mostly sat, getting up between meetings or to get lunch (or coffee, or cookies). After work, de-stressing meant evenings filled with drinking and heavy dinners.
My waistline was expanding again, so I decided to get moving. I found myself calculating the same equation of running = losing weight. I lived two blocks from the Hudson River, so I got my first pair of Nike Lunarlons and hit the pavement.
My running career in New York started slowly. I worked my way back up to 5K, then 10K, then half marathons. I got into a half marathon groove, and made them my annual runs around the city.
As running became part of my routine, I observed how the lifestyle fit others. I noticed everything out on the running circuit: lean bodies, long strides, matching gear, pace-setting, repeats. I was envious. These athletes looked so strong, powerful, put together. Some even ran shirtless! They were real runners.
And me? Belly undulating under my t-shirt, hangover from the night before, just trying to burn calories, continuously-injured hip.
Compared to the picture-perfect running crowd, I didn’t fit in. Even with a runner’s high, I still spun in my athletic complex. I wasn’t them, not even close.
Even though I could run, I never felt like a runner.
The pandemic brought me to the trails.
While quarantining, exercising was critical to my sanity, but running on the streets near our East End house had limited options. There were also cars. And dogs. With all of these detours, I was getting tired of the street scene. A neighbor who sometimes ran, mentioned that she’d been riding her mountain bike on the trails across the street.
“You should try running them.”
I knew they existed—I’d seen the trail heads from the street—but I’d never been curious enough to explore them. I had all of the excuses:
There are ticks.
I don’t know where I’m going.
I don’t even know how to trail run.
In a bit of quarantine desperation for nature, movement, and something new, I finally tried the trails.
I only had road racing shoes, so I cautiously started with a jog, followed the colored markings incessantly, and stayed hyper-aware of my surroundings.
Instead of ticks, overgrown brush, and feeling lost, I found hills, constantly-changing tree varieties, the sky, and a sense of adventure. What I’d convinced myself would be a difficult, confusing, scary place, turned out to be a sanctuary.
And it was fucking FUN.
Despite my aching joints and falling twice, I wanted more. I ordered trail running shoes that afternoon. The day they arrived—the minute they arrived—I was out the door. I felt unstoppable. Ten miles later, I couldn’t believe how effortless my first real trail run felt, and how much fun I’d had.
The trails had been waiting for me this whole time.
The more I ran, the better I felt. While “out there,” I would be inspired with new ideas and get lost in my thoughts. I was learning about the possibilities of gear and performance, and my running style was changing. I could feel my body adapting in new ways to the hills, distances, and footwork over the rocks, leaves, sand, and sticks.
I trained, and trained, and trained. I experimented with hip rotation, ankle placement, and shoulder posture. For what? Simply to be able to spend more time on the trails, to go farther, to explore more.
I’d always been cerebral, smart, intelligent. I nurtured my brain over my body, and I physcially took the brunt of my emotions. Instead of processing my feelings rationally or logically, I sent their confusion to my body, where they stagnated and stayed trapped.
Trail running allowed me to get out of my head and see the potential in my body. It wasn’t just a vessel. It was becoming a machine. It could do all of this.
This combination was something I’d never really felt before: the connection between mind and body.
The more I explored, the more nature I wanted to see. The more nature and newness I saw, the more expansive I felt. My sense of wonder had burst open, and I while I didn’t realize it at the time, I was quietly building a sense of self in every mile.
I was building muscle that had atrophied over the years: curiosity, adventure, and confidence.
The pandemic’s strict quarantine started to wane, and the world seemed to be opening up. I was antsy to travel again, but cautious about where to go and what to do. My new sense of adventure led my wanderlust-driven search:
“Adventure vacations.”
“Running vacation.”
“Adventure travel and running.”
Somewhere in searching, I stumbled on Rogue Expeditions. A small, family-like group who took people to exotic, remote places to run.
Each day, each run, varied between 10K to a half marathon, and promised a new and different adventure between remote destinations. Trips were on hold during the global travel ban, but their website assured that the moment travel returned, they’d be back on the trails.
I was curious, but non-committal. Meeting a group of strangers, in a foreign country, just to run?
That’s not me.
These people look like they can really run.
I can run on trails, but I’m not a real trail runner.
I’m not strong, or athletic, enough.
I follow the rules, I’m not rogue.
Despite my limiting beliefs, my curiosity got the best of me. I joined the mailing list to be notified when they were doing trips again. Just to know.
As a consolation, I ordered Rogue’s book, Venture. During the Covid-19 travel ban, one of the company’s guides and co-owners used the downtime to write about Rogue’s founding and described what it was like to experience “destination running.”
If I wasn’t sure about going on a trip, I could at least read about it.
Once I picked it up, I sprinted to the finish. In my collection of books—if there is one book that has the most special meaning to me—this is the book.
In reading the Rogue story, I saw the part of myself that had been developing. The founders wanted to explore, see, and feel the world. Their mode of transportation was running. They formed local relationships in each place so they could authentically connect with the area. They started a company to bring this to other people.
To run with Rogue wasn’t just about running. It was experiencing a new culture, pushing yourself to navigate foreign terrain, and exploring new parts of yourself. With strangers. Together. It wasn’t a company. It was friends and family.
These stories ignited parts of me I hadn’t discovered yet. These were experiences and relationships I didn’t know how to ask for, but yearned for deep down. These stories made the connections and experiences that I was craving feel real and tangible.
Venture illuminated something I had no idea was within me.
I was ready to go Rogue.
I’ve ventured with my Rogue friends along the lush, western Irish coastline, through the desert and villages of Morocco, atop sculptural peaks in the Italian Dolomites, and this year, through the Accursed mountains of Montenegro and Albania.
On the first trip to Ireland, I was equally scared shitless and excited.
Who would my running mates be?
Is this a good idea?
Shouldn’t I stay home and be responsible?
Will I be able to actually do it?
I had more questions than answers.
Our group met for lunch at a small cafe in Dublin. It was our chance to break the ice, slyly check out each others’ gear, and get the nervous conversation over with. We’d be sharing blood, sweat, and tears (literally) over the next week, so we may as well start getting friendly.
In Rogue style, no minute was wasted. The moment the last person was finished eating, we were packing our packs into vans and off to the first destination. In the hours-long van ride—as the excited chatter took over and everyone was getting to know each other—one word fundamentally rocked me at my core.
I was chatting with my new friend Christina. She was an experienced runner with marathons, ultra marathons, and stage races under her belt. She knew the lingo, everything about training and nutrition, and knew all of the big races. She was the embodiement of the athletes I’d admired for so long, but never felt like someone I’d connect with. She was an athlete and real runner.
Our conversation meandered between mundane personal details, curiosity about our upcoming runs, and most importantly, gear.
Then it happened.
We were talking about gear for what seemed to be hours. She looked up at me, smiling with her eyes and said, “This is awesome. I can’t talk to most of my friends about this stuff. It’s so nice to talk to another runner.”
It shook my entire being.
In my decades-long journey to running, being afraid of the running community, and doubting my physical ability, I never thought of myself as a real runner. I liked to run, but always hesitated at using that word. I was an imposter who tried. A fat kid who struggled. An outsider who looked in.
I don’t think Christina knew (or knows), but that was a turning point in life. It was the warm hug I needed. It felt safe, accepting, and comforting. A lifetime of self-doubt around my body, physical ability, and shame didn’t seem to matter anymore.
I was a runner.
The magic of the running and Rogue communities is the people. Ironically, this is exactly who I had been afraid of my entire life.
My new friends and running family have taught me that being adventurous, curious, and an explorer aren’t just one-off moments, they’re a lifestyle.
I’ve met serious athletes from around the world, and have formed some of the most meaningful relationships in my life.
I never imagined I’d be able to crack jokes and act like an absolute idiot in the literal middle of nowhere with Alain, who can run the most of any person I have ever met and laugh while doing it.
I found a true soul connection in Kara, a wilderness expert, yogi, and ultra runner, who can just as easily switch between navigating intense mountain terrain to finding meaning in the stars, signs, and synchronicities of life and beyond.
And Lara, who has come in and out of my life since Ireland. An ultra-marathoner and overall mountain goat, whose path crosses mine every so many years, where we share life updates, personal growth, and of course, gear.
There are so many more.
The athletes I’d avoided turned out to be my people.
In an attempt to change something—at multiple points in my life—I used a basic movement to step in a new direction: I ran.
The double-entendre of my running journey unfolds:
I started running to get away from a version of myself that no longer fit: wounded, weak, slow, unfit, unworthy.
I was actually running toward a version of myself that I didn’t know existed: adventurous, curious, strong, enduring, connected.
What started as running for physical health ended up shaping an entirely new perspective for living.
I’d been running for my life, all along.
LOVE this, Gabe. TY!
so inspiring!