Running Like a Girl (16 page)

“I'll rest!” I promised my friends, who were muttering darkly about me overdoing things. And rest I did. I stayed at home in my deliciously ugly compression socks, eating whatever I wanted and catching up on ridiculous television. When I was better, I spent a month going to parties wearing silly heels. I enjoyed myself doing whatever I wanted, letting routine's grip relax a little. I kept up with a few park runs and did some social runs with my sister, who was busy losing her baby weight by running around the parks and commons of South London. I enjoyed the lack of pressure, letting myself acquiesce to the fact that no matter how hard you train, chasing a time or fund-raising target need not be the focus. My acceptance and enjoyment were a delight, and running brought me unmitigated gentle pleasures for months.

Then came the e-mail. Edinburgh. I had forgotten about Edinburgh. During my post–London Marathon madness the year before, one of the more “fun” runs I had applied to was called the Speed of Light: a live running installation that
would be part of the world-famous Edinburgh Arts Festival. Its aims sounded lofty—“a desire to elevate non-elite distance and endurance running to the realms of the extraordinary”—but the practicalities really bewitched me. Put together by a public art collective, the proposal was for a group of runners to wear bespoke LED suits controlled from a distance, which meant that they would change color, brightness, and the speed at which they flashed. We would run across the crags of Arthur's Seat in formation, as taught by a choreographer, at different speeds, creating an elegant cross between Tron and a host of fireflies on the hilltop. In my post-marathon flush of enthusiasm, I was determined to be a part of this event. It wasn't just childish excitement about donning a space-age suit that had fired my imagination; it was being part of a statement that running needn't always be about distance or time. That there could be beauty and validity in the act. Yes, the more I thought about it, the more I believed that
this
was the event for me.

But as time had passed, the communication from NVA, the organizers, had been very infrequent. I hadn't been convinced it would happen—my perception of the Edinburgh Festival had been tainted by that of the Fringe: a pub table of twenty-two-year-old stoners trying to find a back room for some improv. If it did happen, I thought it would be much more about spectacle than any sense of athleticism. I'd forgotten about the event and about training for it. After all, it was four months after the Brighton Marathon. Until the morning I sat in bed with my laptop, some toast and peanut butter, and a coffee, and saw the e-mail. About training.

Whereas e-mails from the London Marathon usually arrive via the charity you are running for and are chatty blocks of text gearing you up for the challenge, this was a video. Of a man looking very angry on top of a hill. The man was Angus Farquhar, the organizer of the event, which was to comprise groups of runners in full-body light suits, running up and down Arthur's Seat in the dark, creating stunning visual effects for the spectators, who would be watching live on the hill. While I had been excited by the event, now I was exhausted. And terrified.

The video began with a stern talk about how hill training was different from any other form of training, that if you could run ten miles confidently on the flat, you still might struggle with the challenges that Arthur's Seat presented. “Doing a few road runs will be a complete nightmare. You simply will not be able to keep the pace up, and keeping the pace up is essential,” warned Angus as the wind came straight off the sea and ruffled his hair vigorously. “If, after ten minutes, you need to walk, your whole group will have to walk, and the whole beautiful effect of this work will be destroyed.”

Running as art didn't feel like it was going to be that much fun. Angus spoke sternly of the type of training needed and of how we WOULD NOT COPE if we did not complete it. “There is no magic to hill work; you just have to go out and train on hills.” Fair enough, but Angus, please, a smile would not hurt. There followed an even sterner talk about footwear. We were to buy proper trail shoes. Anyone in a regular pair of running shoes was a fool, as good as taking her life into her own hands.

The camera focused again on Angus, looking increasingly livid. A final word. “I said we were on steep terrain; we are actually on the edge of a cliff, Salisbury Crags.” The camera panned past Angus to show a vertical drop of nearly fifty meters. “But
don't worry, we will never go within two meters of the cliff. It will be really easy to trip.”

Within two meters! With wind that stiff, it didn't seem like much at all. My heart rate had been rising steadily. I forwarded the video to Adam, my trainer, with a bold “LOL!” beneath it. His response wasn't quite as chirpy; the text that pinged back almost immediately announced a change in tactics. I would have to up my running. Again. It was time to learn to run on rough terrain, and it was time to run at night. I guiltily kicked a new pair of heels under my bed and looked up some tips on hill training.

It was a full moon for my first night run on the South Downs. Adam and I had set out at ten
P.M.,
as early as we could have done, given the late July weather. Dusk was falling as we drove out of Brighton, and by the time we set off from Devil's Dyke for Truleigh Hill, the moon was almost directly above us. While I had grown to love runs after dark along the seafront, I still gasped when we reached the top of the first hill and I looked out toward Brighton. The sea was visible, the moon reflected in it. The scene was the sort of thing a Goth teenager might have on a bedroom wall, complete with a sympathetic yet masterful wolf at one side, howling. I was wearing my headlamp from the White Night Half Marathon, and Adam was carrying a flashlight. The galloping sensation of running over chunks of chalk and flint was utterly different from the reliability of hitting tarmac or pavement. I could feel each of the muscles and bones in my feet pulling together, getting stronger and having a strange sort of fun as they tried to work out what they would hit with the next step. I felt my heart rate increase as I headed up and up,
and I felt my body giggle as I juddered down a hill, using all the core body strength I had built with Adam to stop me from toppling over entirely. I got home after midnight, excited. I didn't need to be scared; I was going to become art after all!

On the night of the event, I realized that no matter how lofty my artistic ambitions had been, they could not save me from the enormity of Arthur's Seat. It was a Saturday in midsummer, and as I headed through central Edinburgh, the entire city seemed to be warming up for the mother of all parties. I paced through the streets in my nerdy little trail shoes and merino-wool running top, past bars humming with the nervous energy and lip-glossed hope of a good Saturday night. I headed out of the city and to the tiny city of marquees housing the event and equipment at the bottom of the hill. We gathered in groups and then walked out onto the hill to hear a run-through of our routines. We would be running in circles, zigzags, and other patterns across the landscape, wearing our light suits like wannabe spacemen, and holding special flashlights that lit up when shaken. Excitement bubbled through the group, and I felt a flicker of smugness at those I had passed on the way. Pah! I was going to be the one having the magical Saturday night after all.

Dusk was falling, and a TV in a corner of one of the marquees was broadcasting the final Saturday night of the Olympics as Angus gave us a pep talk about the event. He began with some characteristically stern words about how the environment up on Arthur's Seat was “very serious at night.” “It can turn on you,” he told us. “The terrain is rough, and the mist can come in just like that.” I stifled a nervous giggle. As he continued to talk, my fear gave way to a sense of wonder. Running is a generous
act, he explained, and the energy we were creating would be helping to power the light suits and the torches, rather than simply being calories expended for our own good, to hit a time goal or shift a few pounds. Our movement would be translated into light to be shared and enjoyed by others. He cracked a smile at the end. I was spellbound.

At about eleven
P.M.,
we set out for the hill. The light suits were heavier than I had expected, covering our arms, legs, and torsos. As we began to run slowly, steadily, but always in formation, euphoria came over me. As we approached each craggy hill, I felt a thrill as I realized my legs and heart were more than strong enough to keep me constant regardless of the terrain. I had the power to go uphill and not gallop away when we headed downhill. I heard animals in the undergrowth; I heard the gasps of the audience as we burst into little star shapes of energy on the side of the hill; I heard the panting of the ten of us in my group, running in silence. A whole new world of running seemed to be opening up to me, one where goals, times, and distances were not important; just running across a landscape and feeling it underfoot was enough.

As I walked back to my hotel through the now rather tired-looking streets of Edinburgh, I tried to see myself through the eyes of those who had come to watch the event.
What sort of person does that?
they must have been thinking. It was undeniably beautiful, but also a sort of madness. I tried to see myself through the eyes of my friends and family who had been watching my progress all year.
What is she up to?
they must have been wondering. Running was no longer how I stayed fit but who I was. It was how I functioned, how I relaxed, how I processed my emotions. It was something that those who loved me, loved
about
me.

Running gives freedom. When you run you can determine your own tempo. You can choose your own course and think whatever you want. Nobody tells you what to do.

—Nina Kuscik

O
h, how magnificent I felt as I sat on the train back from Edinburgh. While the gorgeous voluptuousness of the Cumbrian hills whizzed by, I felt as if I were part of them. My running had melded me with the landscape all over again. I stared at the cleavage of a valley, knowing what the gentle give of the turf felt like beneath my feet. My eyes softened as we passed a lake and I remembered the glassy water of the Firth of Forth as I stared out over Edinburgh in the middle of the night. I had never enjoyed running more, never felt more part of something, as though running itself were the destination.