Running Like a Girl (19 page)

Later that morning I was invited to a press breakfast, where we were introduced to the athlete Allyson Felix. A superstar Olympian of 2012, she was one of the many magnificent women who had graced our TV screens over the summer, looking strong, proud, and goddess-like. To sit and chat with one of the women who had helped promote the idea that a useful body, a strong body, might be of more value than a decorative one, was amazing. Once again I was starstruck. I asked her about distance running, and she said she'd never run farther than four miles, and anyone who had was, as far as she was concerned, “someone with a great gift.”

How had the simple act of putting one leg in front of the other made this possible? How was I living out the dreams of the little me on the sofa, legs dangling, unable to touch the carpet, watching the man soaring across the stadium in the jet pack at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics? I felt more complete, more me, than I had in so long. Those weeks of despair during training seemed to melt away. I had a gift, I repeated to myself. I had a gift.

I wasn't feeling quite as gifted the next morning when my alarm went off at four-thirty
A.M.
I put on my running clothes, laid out as usual on the floor by the end of the bed. I rubbed Vaseline all over my feet, remembering the first time my father had told me to do so and how I had scoffed at him. I guzzled a cup of coffee and a carton of coconut water, my favorite pre- and post-run drink, full of electrolytes and far superior to those glucose drinks, in my opinion. I headed out through the lobby, where the concierge waved and wished me luck.

Union Square was swathed in darkness, but there was a buzz in the warm air. The huge palm trees were twinkling with fairy lights. The area had been taken over by the marathon, but now
it was time for business. There were security fences going up around the closed roads, and several streets were lined with big yellow American school buses, ready to bring the runners home from the finish line.

I crossed the square and headed to an all-night diner where a group had arranged to meet. I had some toast and eggs, my usual marathon breakfast, while we took turns going to the bathroom and fixing our race numbers to our tops. Crowds were gathering, like a running zombie nation in the half-light. As ever, I found myself marveling at the myriad shapes and sizes of the runners. In among the crowd there were a few men, but all of them had marked themselves as either survivors of or those left bereft by the cancer whose charity the marathon was associated with.

Within half an hour, I had joined the throng lined up and ready to begin. I could just about see the stage, where my new heroine Joan Benoit Samuelson took the microphone and declared the start. I was going to be running in the same race as Samuelson. I was thrilled as the crowds inched forward slowly while daylight started to appear. Moments later, we set off.

We headed to the edge of the bay and ran toward the Golden Gate Bridge. The crowd fell largely silent, the thump of runners' feet the loudest sound around us. I could smell the fish and wondered how far they had all swum. I tried to remember the route map that I had studied so long back at home in Brighton and then on the plane. I had a pang of longing for home. Then I remembered the bridge. We were going to be there soon, weren't we?

Well, yes, we were, but so was something else. A fog the likes of which I'd never seen before. It was thick and claggy and coming straight off the water. I could feel the humidity settling in
my lungs every time I breathed in. I looked around and saw how much visibility had been reduced. It looked as if there were only a few runners around me, not the hundreds I had set off with. Had it not been for the neon splashes on the odd running vest, I scarcely would have believed I was doing what I was. Fear crept back in. Would the whole run be like this? How would I know where I was going? The marks on the map that I had memorized were obsolete now that I could see no distance at all.

Then I noticed that we were running past the bridge—the Golden Gate of my dreams! All I could see of it were two concrete stumps looming above the water. It was early on in the race, and crushing dispiritedness was starting to consume me. How would I cope if the whole race were like this, so different from everything I had anticipated?

The delicate fabric holding my confidence together began to unravel. I wasn't sure if I'd make it without the visual and emotional treats I had bribed myself with. But then the landscape changed, distracting me altogether. A hill appeared, a huge hill. Five months of my breezy tweets in reply to anyone who had asked about the hills of San Francisco seemed rather facetious. I thought of my passion for hill running that summer, and I imagined that enthusiasm pushing me up the hill. And what a reward was waiting when I got there! There was a spectacular view across what of the bay was visible through the fog. No bridge, but as our heads bobbed up above the mist and clouds, I felt something approaching invincibility.

I gasped, not just breathlessness but excitement. The route was proving to be as astonishing as I had hoped. The views grew more and more spectacular as the mist cleared. I felt like an explorer venturing through the unknown and pushing myself to the limit.

As the halfway point approached, those running the half marathon started to peel away, turning toward their finish line, leaving the rest of us to do the final thirteen-mile loop. Though I wasn't even halfway done, a certain loneliness was creeping over me at seeing so many runners turn away. The distance I'd covered from Union Square felt endless, and the remaining distance seemed unfathomable. I longed for a running partner, a teammate, a companion of some sort.

Then came the texts. I had entirely forgotten, but Nike had created an app, which meant that my Facebook page could chart my progress with messages I had prepared in advance. When I crossed the mats at certain milestones, the chip on my shoe was activated, and Facebook loaded a message updating where I was. My heart surged as the messages started to appear.

“You are not alone, we are here with you.”

“Hemmo! Run home soon!”

“KEEP GOING, DARLING!”

A photograph of Louis appeared, wagging his hands excitedly at the camera, wearing a snazzy pair of tracksuit bottoms. I wanted to hug my phone.

Next a simple row of kisses arrived. I was not alone. I never was and I never would be.

I waved goodbye to the half marathoners and looked around at the women who were left. It was unusual for me not to be surrounded by characters in costume or slower runners at this point in a marathon. This time the other women were just like me. They weren't freaks or hard-bodied obsessives or slaves to the track. They were women trying their hardest. Wearing photos of their family who inspired them. They were inspiring one another. We would run together.

We turned in to Golden Gate Park at mile eleven, and I
looked around at the natural beauty, stunned that I had made it here, that I was allowed to run this course. We passed waterfalls, unfamiliar tree types, and even a few buffalo in a field. After a few more loops, we came to the bay again. There were waves lapping on the beach at the side of the highway. The sea looked so infinite, so inspiring.

As the miles passed, I began to feel the ache of the distance I had run, and I started to feel drained by the effort. The flight, the homesickness, and the miles yet to come all seemed to be rushing at me. A wooziness came over me, and I gripped my phone tighter, willing some more messages to make their way to me. Again I felt far away from home and desperately lonely. But I kept going, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, keeping time with the waves. My energy was ebbing with the tide, and slowly, slowly, I felt myself lapse into a walk.

“No, darling, no!” said a voice to my right. I turned and saw a small, wiry woman, maybe twenty years older, smiling at me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“You don't walk, darling!”

“I don't think I can go on. I just feel so tired.”

“No, darling, keep going, I'm with you.” She had a strong South American accent. I asked her where she was from.

“El Salvador, darling, but I run all over the world.”

“Wow, really? This is the first time I've run abroad. How many marathons have you done?”

“Fifty! All over the world! I love to run.”

Her smile seemed as broad as the beach itself. Yet I felt horrendous. I thought perhaps I was going to be sick, as water started to course down the inside of my mouth in a way I had previously experienced only after a teenage night of too much cider.

“Come on, darling, it's less than two miles. We're going to do it. You and me. You are so special. What's your name?”

“Alexandra.”

“Alexandra! Like Alexandra the Great! You are so special, keep going, keep going.”

I was swallowing hard, trying to keep myself from being sick. I seemed to be seeing things in black and white as my vision blurred. Was this hitting the Wall? Wasn't that meant to be earlier in a race? Why was I . . . so . . . very . . . tired?

My eyes opened with a start as I felt her grip my hand.

“We are nearly there, Alexandra! Look at the colors! Let's keep looking at the colors. Look at the yellow shorts. Can you see the bright yellow? Wonderful! Oooooh my! Look at her socks! Pink kneesocks, well I never! See the sky, Alexandra, see how blue the sky is now. Keep going, keep going.”

And so she continued, holding my hand, coaxing me on like a child. I looked at the colors. I loved her. I wanted to be home.

“Look, Alexandra! We are nearly at the end! There will be firemen there. And necklaces. You are going to make it. You are so wonderful, such a special girl. Look at the colors, keep your legs steady, here we are.”

I saw the balloons that marked the finish line, and I stared until I reached them, propelling myself forward with force of will alone. It seemed that someone had kicked me behind the knees. As the balloons grew closer, my relief was so intense that I could barely keep myself upright.

“Thank you so much thank you so much thank you so much,” I sobbed, squeezing her hand. Finally, we crossed the line, holding hands above our heads. I collapsed into the arms of one of the tuxedo-clad firemen standing there and accepted the Tiffany's box he handed me on a silver platter. My marathon
prize was not a medal this time but a necklace. I grabbed my friend and some of the others I had finished alongside, and I wept.

Sitting in the departure lounge at the airport the next day, I felt my phone ping, announcing an e-mail. I recognized the name in my in-box, but in my exhaustion, I couldn't quite place it: Kathrine Switzer. I opened the message, and only as I read it through the second time did I realize who it was from. Another of my marathon heroes, this time congratulating me on my marathon time. I had written to her months before to request an interview, and only now had she gotten the chance to reply. As a fellow runner, she knew how much it would mean to me to look up my time and congratulate me. My disappointment at a speed no faster than my Brighton marathon result turned to pride.

I felt a surge of new awareness: I was a runner for life. No matter what else was going on around me, no matter how long the gaps between my runs, no matter how high, how long, or how fast my races were, I was a runner. Once you have taught yourself that running isn't about breaking boundaries you thought you could never smash, and realized that it is about discovering those boundaries were never there in the first place, you can apply it to anything.

I sat in my seat on the plane, gazing out the window at the bay below, and put my hand up to touch my necklace medal. Was that the Golden Gate Bridge we were flying over? I stared, hoping, until we were above the ocean. I flicked through some notes and found a quote I had scribbled down. It was Julia Chase-Brand talking about her famous road race, the only
woman among a sea of men: “Finishing that race was a defining moment for me. If I could handle that pressure, I realized I could go ahead and live my life as I wanted. I could do anything.”

All of my races, my quiet solitary runs, my ridiculous rainy ones with friends, they all involved shifting a bit of blood around and getting my legs to take me from one place to the next. They had also been about so much more: the shame overcome, the courage discovered, and the exhilaration reached. Running had made my heart bigger, but only now did I understand in how many ways.