For the first time in the history of the Boston Marathan, nonbinary runners can officially register in a division that matches their gender identity, and this year, 27 nonbinary athletes have registered to run, according to boston.com in a story profiling one of the runners:
The 2023 Boston Marathon is the first time runners who identify as nonbinary have been able to officially register in a division that matches their gender identity, and [Cal] Calamia is one of 27 runners who registered for the race in the new category.
Speaking with Boston.com ahead of the April 17th event, Calamia said that the Boston Athletic Association has “proven its allyship” within the mission of creating an inclusive race by establishing the nonbinary division.
“The running world is a microcosm for the world at large,” Calamia said. “And if we can just have people begin to acknowledge that people do exist beyond the gender binary of male and female or man and woman, then that opens up a more inclusive space where as many people as possible can enjoy running.”
Having the BAA and Boston do that, they said, feels “so good.”
“I feel really held,” they said. “I feel really excited, and I feel really proud of all of the people that are going to show up and run this category.”
Calamia, 26, fell in love with running when they started playing soccer in kindergarten.
“They would always keep me in the game; they never took me out because I never got tired,” they said. “My coaches and my teammates would be like, ‘Why are you smiling all the time when you’re running?’”
The love for the sport grew by the time they were in fifth grade when they joined the cross country team. Calamia embraced and reveled in their ability to lap people on the two-mile course.
They continued to compete through college, running the 5K and the mile.
But the marathon has since become their favorite race. They find comfort in training cycles as a way to organize time and the world around them.
It has become meditative for the San Francisco resident and high school health and Spanish teacher.
“Something I love about it to this day is the fact that it doesn’t require much to go for a run,” Calamia said. “While it’s great to run with other people, you don’t need other people. You can just throw on your shoes and go. And for me, I’m a super busy person, I’m kind of all over the place with my different endeavors and commitments. So it provides me a way to sort of actively rest, to let my brain rest and have my alone time and my space to process what’s going on in the world and in my life.”
Monday will be Calamia’s first time running Boston, but it is the third marathon they will be participating in under the emerging nonbinary division. They ran the San Francisco Marathon in July last year and Chicago in October.
Read the complete boston.com story here.
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