I need to run.

I used to be a long distance runner. I'm 5' 8" now (almost, all short guys round up) . At the time I was just over 5' tall. I had proportionately speaking long legs and a short torso. I ran JV and sometimes picked up points for the team by showing up if the other team couldn't field three )or more) runners. Occasionally I even won. In any case running is a lonely sport, no fans in the stands, sometimes no runners to run against, Just me gutting it out against the clock. I always found a little extra for that last 100 yards, sprinting past what I had to imagine was a stand full of fans. I ran whether I had a stitch in my side, a pulled hamstring, or a knee remembering a vicious tackle in a touch football game.

I didn't have a lot of self esteem from years of thoughtless bullying and snide comments about my size and less than masculine physique. The track was what kept me convinced that I was in fact a man as much as any estrogen rich chubby football player with his man-boobs masquerading as pecs. Nothing like initially being left behind by the pack at the gate but burning past their wheezing lungs and pained expressions at the 800 yard mark. In a very large school I realized that ther were only maybe 20 guys that could beat me in a mile, and only hard core runners could beat me at 2 miles. My record for 400 meters was 72 seconds. My mile time at 5:14 was not earth shattering but for my age and height it stands as a pretty impressive display of heart and lungs. Especially for a boy that was small because of childhood bronchial asthma. 72x4 is 4:48 I only lost 26 seconds from an all out sprint. No one can sprint a mile. My 2 mile time at 11:34 was nearly 2 sprinted miles less one minute.

I had high hopes for speed as I grew. As it was the tallest of the varsity runners took 2 strides to my 3. The coach already thought I was striding to long as it was. When they ran 10 miles, I took the same number of steps as 15 miles. I ran 5 miles every morning before school, then I kicked the football teams ass for a mile, then back off campus for another 5 miles of roadwork.

That was the only year I ran with a silly dishwashing job taking my time the next year. As I grew it was all torso, so now I have proportionately short legs. A motorcycle accident, 6 months on crutches, 2 years on a cane ended any real thoughts of a comeback. Eventually I learned to jog, but it wasn't the same, no clock, no goal, no thrill.

In the last few years after years of having no say in how light I was, I slowly crept up in weight to 168. I was horrified by the picture I took when I was trying to improve my crossdressing look. I set a goal of 145 lbs. A couple of months later, this morning I achieved that goal. I am already aiming for 135 now. It feels good to feel I have some mastery over my body again. I think I might be light enough to begin light training without injuring my leg. Running robs your upper body of tissue in favor of feeding the legs which will help my blouse size get closer to my skirt size, but its gonna cost me my little man-boobs. I can live with that.