My brother and I made two stops, thoughts of roadside peeing looming larger in our terrified minds. On entering and exiting, we avoided eye contact with the other runners, kindred pilgrims complicit in the same fleeting madness.
When we reached the starting-line area, the atmosphere became more like that of a carnival or feast day than the earlier reverence. Thick black speakers belted out relentless motivational music. A cheesy DJ read dedications and good-luck messages. A gospel choir would not have surprised me. Half an hour later, I spotted one.
It was an enormous spectacle, and we were irredeemably a part of it. Numbed by the volume of activity around me, I handed over my bag with barely a second thought.
Relieved not to have missed any trains or broken any legs en route, my brother and I became almost hysterical, the mood of the crowd sweeping us up in nervous anticipation. Nibbling on crackers and bananas, we joined the hordes of runners leaning against trees doing last-minute stretches, and took silly photos of each other in our running vests. Maybe it would be fun after all, we started to tell each other, glancing around. Everyone seemed to be okay. I relaxed into the idea of spending the day in Greenwich Park, getting to know my new friends, my fellow pilgrims. Then, suddenly, we were called to the starting enclosures. Just as suddenly, I desperately wanted to go home.
Runners at the London Marathon line up by expected finish times. The fastest runners leave first so they don’t get trapped behind the rest of us—the nervous, the slow, and the becostumed. I was divided into a pen based on my anticipated time, as predicted six months earlier on the application. The me who had filled in that form now seemed as foreign as the professional athletes warming up for the BBC cameras. I’d had no idea what I might be capable of; the prospect of finishing had filled me with wide-eyed wonder. Consequently, I had no recollection of what I had stated as my predicted time back in October, and it was only when we collected our race numbers that I discovered I’d gone for the slowest time possible. My brother, who had done some basic research, had not. He was due in a pen two hundred meters away. He turned and grinned at me. “Good luck!” he said, stretching his arms out for a hug and doing his best to mask his own nerves. “You’ll probably win!”
My baby brother, heading off without me. My bottom lip wobbled. “Have an amazing time,” I replied, trying not to look flustered by the huge number of runners flocking toward the starting enclosures. “See you at the end—and text me when you’ve finished!”
I walked toward my pen, which seemed to be populated by the elderly and people dressed as cartoon characters. My cheeks burned with shame as I realized that my low expectations for myself had labeled me as one of this lot. I looked around and smiled, hoping for a similarly aged face that might take pity on me and smile back. Everyone else seemed to be with someone, bonding over something. The crowd packed in around me, emphasizing the aching loneliness that washed over me. I felt something like the homesickness that I had felt as an eight-year-old at boarding school for the first time. The thought of the run no longer bothered me. But the thought of doing it alone, with nothing but my thoughts for the next few hours, flooded me with anxiety.
Another problem I had never even considered was creeping up on me—my fear of crowds. I have never been to a music festival; I avoid big sales at the mall; and I skulk around at the beginnings and ends of big sporting events until almost everyone has left. I have jumped fences in Hyde Park and run through the trees in the dark to avoid the drunken crowds coming out of concerts. I always, always seek to avoid my worst nightmare: being caught up in an unpredictable tsunami of humans. If possible, I will walk rather than take a packed train, or I’ll wait until a crowd has passed, so horrified am I of being moved by a mass of bodies in a direction I can’t control.
I looked around the pens, occasionally bouncing on tiptoes to check on the river of people ahead, and saw that this was exactly where I was. Six months of training, most of them entirely alone, for this: the biggest crowd I had ever been part of. As I had pounded my local pavements alone, run across ox droves and through grassy valleys circling my parents’ home, and around the lanes of Tobago on holiday, I had never considered the glaringly obvious fact that on the day there would be other runners alongside me. How had I not thought of that? How would I find my place among the bodies? How would I deal with the relentless lava flow of runners?
My heart hammered in my chest, and I stared down at my shoes, hoping to contain the rising panic. The feet around me began their slow shuffle toward the start line. I looked up; the red start banner was so far away that we could barely see it. We moved forward, the chatter rising and falling, people wishing one another good luck. The pace quickened as we turned the corner and suddenly saw the arch, with its familiar clock sitting above it. The crowd began to jog, slowly, apprehensively, at first. And then a real run as we crossed the mats that triggered the timer chips tied to our shoes. People around me cheered and whooped as they set off. I let out a nervous, fluttering laugh. I was running a marathon.
Five minutes into the first mile, the crowd had eased into a steady pace. I was able to overtake a few slow joggers. We were heading through Greenwich, streets of smart residential houses with families outside—many still in pajamas—wishing the runners well and cheering them along as they hugged morning cups of tea. Their smiles lifted me as my heart rate leveled out and my feet found a regular rhythm.
Half an hour later, my attitude to the crowd had shifted. I felt dependent on the steady thud of others’ feet as we curled gently round corners as one, our pulses quickening in unison as we headed up the occasional inclines. I looked around and started to recognize faces, numbers, and names from earlier in the day. We were like a family now. I would not complete this alone after all. A surge of confidence bubbled up in me, and I began grinning and waving at the spectators. I felt like a rock star, as though an occasional glance from me could inspire a watching child to a lifetime of athletic prowess. Yes! You can be whomever you want to be! I felt like shrieking it to each and every one of them as I sailed past, legs strong and heart pumping.
We turned another corner, and I spotted a line of children with their hands outstretched, hoping to catch high fives from the passing competitors. They went largely ignored, as the crowd was shuffling for positions, teddy bears jostling among Smurfs for superiority on the road. Occasionally, someone would run by and slap the children’s hands, leaving a little ripple of grins behind them. I decided I wanted to do that. I spotted a gap in the sea of people and took a couple of steps toward the edge of the road, stretching out my arm. I was yearning for a bit of human contact, and these small hands seemed like the perfect comfort and acknowledgment.
I leaned forward, reaching out for one of the hands and continuing to run as I grinned down at the child. I felt the ground rushing up toward me. Before I could work out what was happening, my left hip struck the pavement, and a rush of heat seared across my thigh as I skidded along the road. I had not spotted the curb; in reaching for those hands, I had lost my footing and fallen, my legs a rag-doll jumble. I stared at the tarmac, sweating under the disappointed gaze of the children, painfully aware of the inconvenience I was causing other runners, as they had to step around me. Gasping, I sprang up, pushed my hair off my face, and carried on running.
I longed for the debilitating shame of tripping and falling alone, when all that is left for you to do is glare at the guilty pavement. I had done that many times and almost developed a technique for coping with it. This shame was a hundred times worse, surrounded as I was by an audience. Their pitying gasps, their shaking heads, their angry shuffles past.
The price of vanity, I could feel them thinking. Only a first-timer would do that.
Soon the pain of embarrassment was replaced by a rush of physical pain. Each time my right thigh rose toward me, I saw my shredded running tights. I was grazed and bruised from shoulder to elbow to knuckles, as well as the length of my thigh, where flecks of lacerated Lycra were embedded. The bloo
d from my leg was starting to drip down, and my pelvis was giving off its familiar dull ache.
Sweat met blood met fabric in dappled crops of stinging. Each step caused the fissures on my thigh to crackle and split, and a fresh smattering of pain worked its way across me. I knew I had to get some antiseptic on the grazes. A mile later, I spotted an ambulance tent. I ran off the main road and into the tent. I arrived, panting, unused to a world where I stood still and others moved. A reassuring-looking elderly lady with a whipped-cream topping of a hairdo looked up and smiled at me. “Hello, dear. Our first customer of the day! What seems to be the problem?” she asked with all the urgency of a woman judging a sponge cake at a town fair. The feet passing outside the tent made a constant rumble as all the runners I had overtaken in the last hour steadily passed me. “Oh dear, that’s a nasty graze, isn’t it?” Her tone was one of a kindly grandmother.
I’m running a race! I wanted to shout. Help me, I need to get back there. One of the Smurfs passed the tent’s entrance as it flapped open in the breeze.
“Pam, do we have any antiseptic wipes?”
My heart was struggling to know what to do: beat slower because I was standing still or beat faster in panic at my new friend’s apparent lack of urgency.
“Oooh, I think they’re in the hold-all that June brought in,” came the reply.
“Now, dear, can you just fill in this form so they know what we’ve done with you?”
“I wanted you to check there was no grit in my grazes, really.”
“I understand, dear. Now, what’s your date of birth?”
“The fourteenth of—”
“Oh, now isn’t that lovely eye makeup, June? So nice that the young lady’s made an effort for the big day . . .”
I wanted to be angry, but I was so relieved that someone was taking care of me. I wanted to be running, but there was no chance of that for another few minutes, at least.
“Apparently, the weather’s going to turn in a bit, but you wouldn’t believe it, looking at the sky, would you?”
I winced: I’ll never know if it was the pain of her dabbing at the grazes or the sight of two men dressed as rhinoceros stomp past the tent. It had taken me three minutes to get past them half an hour ago.
Eventually, June’s friend deemed me fit to run. I begged for some anti-inflammatory pills for the bruising, but they were firm—they were not allowed to give me any. I left the tent and my twelve minutes of unscheduled static contemplation behind me. Rejoining the throng was harder than starting at the beginning of the race. I had been wrenched in the wrong direction; all my confidence had evaporated, and I was surrounded by a gaggle of fancy-dress runners, valiant old folk, and others barely doing more than a walk. I loved these guys; I knew I could happily spend the next five hours with them and trundle to the finish, declaring myself injured. I also knew how hard I had trained. And I knew my injuries were probably superficial. I had to make a decision: run around them in order to regain a steady pace, getting a few miles under my belt, or run treacle-slow, expending no energy on dodging rhinos but letting the marathon continue almost infinitely. To make matters worse, the thud of pain was reappearing, and it was only going to get worse.
I chose the former, and I didn’t enjoy a second of it. Instead of running in a straight line, I was effectively running twice as fast and far as everyone around me. I wove across the road, shimmying between women chatting about their grandchildren, ducking beneath wacky headgear, and dodging around Mr. Men. Every twist and shimmy created blooms of pain in my joints while I seemed to go nowhere. The heavens finally opened, just as the reports had been promising. I was glad for the rain, as it hid the tears I shed for three miles. As I plodded through the rain, my shoes swelled, and my heart felt as heavy as my sodden ponytail. I was playing out different excuses in my mind, performing imaginary role-plays of how I’d explain to friends and family that I’d given up on the marathon halfway because of some grazes and sprains.
This reverie had become almost enjoyable, the masochism of my new determination to fail consuming me, when my phone buzzed with a text from my father. They were nearby, under a mile away, waiting to cheer me on up Jamaica Road, around mile eleven. My father, my mother, and my sister. I refreshed my master plan. I would keep going at least until I had seen them; it would be rude to deprive them of the chance to see me running after waiting all that time. Then I would decide whether to abandon the mission. As I approached, I started to crane my neck, hoping to spot one of them in the thick ropes of the crowd, maybe catch a smile. No need. I heard my mother’s voice rise like a lark above the rest of the uniform cheering: “COME ON, MY DARLING GIRL, YOU ARE DOING SO WELL, NOT TOO FAR BEHIND YOUR BROTHER! KEEP GOING, YOU STRONG, STRONG THING, AND MAYBE YOU’LL CATCH HIM AND SHOW THOSE BOYS WHAT WE’RE MADE OF!”
“I’ve fallen!” I replied, pointing to my shredded leggings.
“KEEP GOING, YOU LAUGH IN THE FACE OF PAIN!” was the reply I received, amid further whooping from the three of them.
A concerned woman on the sidelines edged her stroller away from my raucous family. I shrieked, as did my sister when she saw me, and they all burst into cheering, waving, and clapping. Their fellow onlookers understood that a loved one had been spotted and joined in with the yelling. A ripple of goodwill passed through them and made its way toward me and my neighboring runners. Someone nearby slapped me on the back as I passed.
Whether you know them or not, supporters make an incalculable difference when you are running a race. Cheers are never, ever unwelcome. (Unless, perhaps, the cheerers are enjoying a cigarette with their roadside pint and blowing the smoke into the runners’ faces.) Those few seconds of hearing people shout your name can keep a lonely runner going for miles.
As we turned along the river and approached Tower Bridge and the thirteen-mile mark, I felt part of a communal effort once again. The mass of runners hugged against me as the road narrowed and the towers loomed into sight. The bands and cheering grew louder. A communal energy spurred us on and we were all grinning. We felt like superheroes as we crossed the river. The sun broke through the clouds and dried us out, making us giddy with glee. I grinned at a Captain Caveman roaring and waving his plastic club at the spectators. He caught my eye and grinned back. My earlier resentment of the slower runners had dissipated. I felt that we were in it together. We were doing it for each other. And we were halfway! Maybe I could do it after all, and maybe, maybe, it was worth it.
After Tower Bridge, the marathon route heads toward the city, and for about a mile the road is divided in two with runners going in both directions. Those at thirteen miles are heading east, and adjacent to them are the runners already at twenty-two miles, heading for the final stretch. It serves as an almost immediate reality check after the rock-star high of crossing the river. Where minutes ago you felt like an iconic athlete, capable of anything, here you are confronted with a stampede of runners nine miles ahead of you. It was exactly as I hit this point that “halfway” ceased to sound like an achievement and became more of a punishment. I had to do this all over again? I had already been drenched, tearful, injured, ecstatic, and hysterical. Doing it a second time was absurd, out of the question, nonsense. Yet there seemed no alternative but to keep plodding on.
The crowd started to thin out as some runners slowed to a walk, others stopped to chat with loved ones or queue for a roadside toilet, and some dropped out altogether. The thundering mass that had crossed the bridge where the route was at its narrowest now spread across the wide avenues of the City of London. I could still see runners around me, but they were becoming fewer and fewer. There was no one close enough to talk to, no feet to stare at. There were barely any spectators. The space I had craved a couple of hours earlier now felt like a cruel echo chamber. I tried to convince myself that the end would appear soon.
Bereft of the iconic sights that we had passed earlier, feeling increasingly isolated and overtaken by tiredness, my mind began to play tricks on me. While my legs seemed
able to keep going, my mental strength was collapsing. I began not just to doubt myself but to berate myself. You’re running around the City in a pair of ripped trousers to try and prove a point. You wouldn’t be feeling like this if you had trained properly. All those runs where you didn’t try your hardest because you were a bit tired, well, this is tiredness. You’re weak because you’re tired, you probably won’t make it. You’re weak even to be considering the fact that you won’t make it. You’re selfish, making your friends and family come and cheer for you when you’re not that good. You’re not tired, you’re just lazy.
The torrent of self-doubt continued for mile upon mile. The pain in my pelvis grew more acute. Soulless concrete and glass buildings dominated the landscape, growing taller as the route became more intricate between miles fifteen and twenty. The mile markers were out of sight and we were running in loops, weaving between huge office blocks that hid from view the next water station or cheering point. Just as I needed it most, my faith utterly vanished like a piece of tissue paper in flames.
Though I had devoted so much attention and preparation to avoiding hitting the physical Wall, I had devoted nothing to avoiding this emotional wall. No one had warned me about it, no one had told me how to prevent it, no one had prepared me for how to deal with it. Was I the only one feeling these things? Of course I assumed that I was, and I felt like the most pathetic runner of the pack. I would have been prepared to argue until sundown with anyone who had told me that I could do it. Even the most well-meaning roadside cheers were reaching my ears as jeers. I wanted to hide from them all, to conceal this certain humiliation. I was sure to the point of rage that this race was never going to end. For the first time all day, there was no doubt in my mind. It had nothing to do with nutrition, or tiredness, or hormones. Those were ludicrous suggestions. Mental doors suggesting any other possibility slammed shut the second I approached them. It was simple, I would be running forever.
Running Like a Girl Page 7