The night before my first marathon, my period decided to show up. In the whole year I had trained, I had never had to do any of my long runs while on my flow, and I was completely not used to it. But I said eff it. I decided to run the whole marathon bleeding freely between my legs. It would have been too uncomfortable to worry about a tampon for 26.2 miles. I thought, if there’s one person society won’t mess with, it’s a marathon runner. If there’s one way to transcend oppression, it’s to run a marathon with blood dripping down your legs. On the marathon course, sexism can be beaten. The stigma of a woman’s period is irrelevant. We can re-write the rules as we choose. Our comfort supersedes that of the observer. I ran that race for sisters who don’t have access to tampons and sisters who, despite cramping and pain, hide it away and pretend like it doesn’t exist. I ran to say, it does exist, and we overcome it every day.