For Nick Dill, the Marathon Will Be a "Victory Lap"
Stage lights and ambition lured Nicholas “Nick” Dill from Fort Thomas, Kentucky, to New York City. Nick, whose pronouns are they/them, enrolled at New York University and double-majored in dance and psychology. After graduation, they got gigs as a freelance dancer, but a nagging injury hampered their ability to dance full time.
Nick eventually retired from professional dancing and began a graduate program at the Tri-State College of Acupuncture. They started running because it offered a cheap and convenient way to stay in shape.
“The most I would run was 3 miles,” Nick said. “I did that twice a week. I didn’t love it at that point; I did it as a chore.”
In 2015, Nick cheered on a colleague at the TCS New York City Marathon. The crowds and energy proved inspiring and they resolved to run a marathon someday. A year later, they signed up for their first race—a half marathon. “Like a lot of first-time runners, I didn’t do an amazing training plan. I found one online. But I did pretty well,” they said.
Nick’s marathon debut came at the 2019 Walt Disney World Marathon, and they promptly got the marathon bug. They joined Front Runners New York in 2019, finding a group where they could combine socializing with run-focused speed workouts.
Also that year, Nick graduated from acupuncture school and started seeing patients. They now work for 5 Point Acupuncture and at Morningside Acupuncture, focusing on sport-related injuries.
Nick completed the 2022 Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Marathon in 2:58, fulfilling a long-held sub-3:00 goal and qualifying for the Boston Marathon in the men’s runner category.
When they’d registered to run Rock ‘n’ Roll, they hadn’t yet come out as non-binary. The realization of their gender identity came after much introspection and examining stereotypes associated with being gay, said Nick. "I came out as a gay person as a freshman in high school. I just knew to my core that this was me and I couldn’t hide it,” they recalled. “This coming out process was very different.”
Nick had been with their partner, Mikey, for six and a half years, and recalls feeling intense stress, shame, phobia, and fear that Mikey might not accept their change in gender identity. They had a “full-blown panic attack” before coming out to Mikey, but he listened calmly and openly and has been “loving and supportive and so wonderful,” said Nick.
They added that whereas they’d first understood the term “non-binary” to refer to people who don’t identify as male or female, “[I’ve learned] it’s more about non-conforming to the binary.”
“For a long time, I felt very in touch with femininity but I think I attributed that to being gay, and that’s part of the stereotype that’s engrained in my brain. At least for me, I feel almost equal parts masculine and female and that’s how I identify.”
The Boston Marathon recently announced it would include a non-binary gender category starting with its 2023 race, and Nick will compete in that category—just as they do in NYRR races, where the category was introduced in June 2021.
“I'm so proud to be representing this category and be celebrated as a queer and non-binary person. Our whole lives, it was you don’t fit in, you’re different, you're weird,” said Nick. “It’s not about the plaque. It’s about we’re seen, we're here. It feels so incredibly special to be recognized for who we are.”
After finishing as the third non-binary runner at this year’s Front Runners New York LGBT Pride Run and New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile, and second at the New Balance Bronx 10 Mile, Nick took a breather from their TCS New York City Marathon training to get married to Mikey in Orlando.
Nick plans to run the TCS New York City Marathon on November 6 with a relaxed attitude before ramping back up to prepare for Boston. “I’m just going to have fun; I took the time goal out,” they said. “New York is going to be a victory lap.”
