About that marathon moment
I speak to Anne Helen Petersen about her running journey through The Portal.
One of the writers whose work resonates with me the most frequently is Anne Helen Petersen in her Culture Study newsletter. I’ve linked to her marvelous 2023 piece on The Portal before, where Anne documents and helps explain the creative surge that arrives for many in midlife.
There are descriptors such as “crisis” and “awakening,” talk of big events such as illness or building a family driving a reassessment of one’s life, or maybe, simply, a push out of the stagnation of day-to-day life.
That piece resonated with me because I think I’m in my Portal. Since moving to L.A. in 2014, a couple of kids and a pandemic slowed my writing career down, but ultimately I never really found job satisfaction as a copywriter and content editor. I’ve had jobs that have paid well, and jobs that have been corporately creative, but nothing that felt truly meaningful. Nothing that compared to my work as a journalist. So, I started doing that again. Simple.
The surprising thing to me is that my workflow is more fluent than I remember. I have methods to retrieve myself from the hours of listlessness and ennui I once suffered. It’s funny for many to joke about getting the Sunday Scaries ahead of returning to their 40-hour work week, but I can’t wait for Mondays so I can sit down and write something.
I don’t know what unlocked it. I don’t know if the hours with a child sleeping on me or in my car gave me time to think, or if an extra decade of reading about the creative processes of people like Pharrell Williams is what I needed to figure out how to do this more properly on my own. Maybe it’s purpose. Maybe it’s focus. Maybe it’s The Portal. Whichever way we choose to spin it, here I am, and I’m very glad that you’re here with me.
So how does The Portal relate to running? Well, Anne Helen Petersen is a runner. She’s already run four marathons and has a goal to run 10 marathons by the time she’s 50, in seven years’ time.
On The Portal and running:
“My Portal is kind of weird, because it began younger for me. When I left academia, I think that was kind of the beginning. Leaving BuzzFeed, and starting my newsletters… and reconfiguring my relationship to work did coincide with deciding, ‘Oh, I can run a marathon.’
Despite having two active parents (a state champ sprinter, and an avid hiker) Anne started out as “the kid who tried to hide in the bathroom during the mile run” at school. Anne only started running after college to “regimen her body in some way,” but it got more serious in her late 20s.
“I was challenging myself so much in my twenties with academic rigor, I needed whatever exercise I was doing to be very steady and reassuring in some way, so I would run a couple times a week but not anything longer than 6 miles.”
While studying for her PhD, she had a daily hot yoga routine, but when she started teaching, she needed more. Moving from being immersed in ideas to correcting papers, as well as moving from Texas heat back to the fresher climes of the Pacific Northwest, led to running longer distances. Dating a competitive runner meant that saying double-digit distances out loud led to nonchalant reactions rather than gasps of awe.
“I started to experience that pleasure of, ‘Oh this is what happens.’ I will never forget the first time I ran 10 miles.”
The marathon moment(s):
“I ran a Ragnar Relay race (in 2022) where we lost two of our group members to Covid. We were like ‘Let's just cover it ourselves.’ So I ended up running 28 miles over two days, and so it just became a new thing that I was like, ‘I can do this.’”
“I was so scared of doing the 20 miles. There was something about that like how I felt on the 20 was going to be indicative of am I a marathon person or not? And I was so scared of it, but like so many things in my life that I've been so scared of, I was so well prepared for it. When I did it, it was amazing.”
“The actual marathon was the Portland Marathon. It was super unseasonably hot, and it didn’t feel amazing, especially at the end, but I also knew, ‘Oh, this is the first of many experiences. I'm gonna get to do this again.’
Did you have a marathon moment? How about The Portal? Are you in it? Can you see it on your horizon? Let’s have a chat in the comments.
Living on an island of 1000 people, a short ferry ride away from mainland Washington state, Anne primarily runs alone now. Her neighbors recognize her as she runs loops of the 9-mile-long island.
On not joining run clubs (there isn’t one on the island):
“There’s just some fraughtness around speed and keeping up with people that keeps me from ever doing a run club as a way to meet people. I'm very comfortable doing it with my friends, who I already know their pace, but when the variables are out of my control it is scary to me.”
“It's like being scared of going to a party and that no one's gonna talk to you. If I made friends with someone who was already part of the run club and ran around my pace, it would be like having someone who knows the people who are throwing the party.”
On her mind while running:
“I use music as a last resort. On anything under 10 miles? Nothing at all.”
“People get into very meditative states, and really get into their breathing. I'm not one of those people whose mind just totally blanks. I sometimes think about what I'm going to write about, but running on this island, you have to be very, very attuned to your environment. There's no shoulder on the road, so you have to be listening very closely for cars.”
“When I feel like I can relax a little bit, I am thinking about an idea that I'm pondering about for the newsletter. I don't go into the deep past or anything like that. I think about running a lot. I think about my next run, and how I’m feeling on this run. That sort of thing.”
While this was an interview from December (the wildfires put my posting schedule off horribly), it just so happens that I recorded an episode of the Culture Study Podcast with Anne last week where we answer some fantastic questions from her readers about how we engage with running culture in 2025. It was a very, very fun conversation, and I’ll post the episode here when it airs, of course.
In the meantime, take a look at Culture Study for a whole load of brilliant cultural commentary, especially for people in that Elder Millennial age group.
Last week on Running Sucks
March is International Women’s Month, so how best to celebrate than to highlight an inspirational woman in the field of running. is an exceptional runner, with a world record to her name, but also builds races that nobody else in the USA has dared to build. For runners by a runner. It’s perfect.
Previously on Running Sucks
In the run-up to the 2024 L.A. Marathon, I featured Duy Nguyen, the leader of Koreatown Run Club, which is one of the most popular and influential crews in Los Angeles. The creative perspective that Duy brings to running is truly unique.
Despite the date on this article, the very first Running Sucks article was published two years ago. Happy 3rd birthday, Eagle Rock Run Club! I think my writing has improved in that time. Go judge me.
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Raz x
I like this idea of The Portal.
I have found myself (even though I am outside my 40s) in this space recently.
Coming to grips with the idea that plates will fall and break despite my best efforts to spin them all has been enlightening. I have also found the space where I feel most comfortable in talking about endurance sports and not concerning myself with the subject that others cover when it comes to these sports.
So, same as you without the Sunday Scaries. Excited to wake up, put my best foot forward and allow the chips (or plates in this case) to fall where they may.
it is sort of cathartic in a way!