every footfall feels like freedom

(becoming a runner)

The morning that we run down Sandy Lane from my grandparent’s house on the hill to the sea, I am seven or eight years old. More of a path than a lane, with tall hedges on either side, on this summer morning it’s like passing through a leafy bower. My little brother and I are trying to keep pace with my aunt, out for her daily exercise. In this moment, running isn’t about anything more complicated than my feet expressing the excitement I feel in breathing salt-scented air, my urgency to step out into the open and see the sea, sparkling with promise. Running is joyful and free.

The afternoon that we run around the village for our cross-country lesson, I am fourteen years old. Introverted and awkward, I am only truly comfortable in my duffel coat and DM boots; PE skirts and gym knickers repulse me and this enforced running is my idea of hell. I watch the sporty girls sprint off, long-limbed, hating the burning in my lungs that feels like failure. Once we’re out of the PE teacher’s sight, my best friend and I don’t even try. We walk the route together, arm in arm. I’m just not a runner, I think to myself, and from the moment my last school PE lesson is over, I avoid running altogether, apart from to catch the occasional bus.

Half a lifetime, and three babies later, my sense of myself as ‘not a runner’ is completely entrenched. We are holidaying in the Normandy countryside when I surprise myself as much as anyone one morning by replying to my husband’s idle question of ‘I’m going for a run—want to come?’ with a ‘Yes’. I run with him a short way, to the barns and back. My legs feel unfamiliar, my lungs burn once again, but this time I feel not failure but determination. Each day, I run a little further along the hilltop: past the pond, the hay bales, the ruined cottage draped in Russian Vine, a field of poppies and ox-eyed daisies. Exertion becomes a pleasure when I am running just for me, and I grow stronger with every stride.

In the beginning, I have a running playlist, a Fitbit, and I calculate the distance of my routes, but I soon strip everything back to just the sound of my feet on the ground, pounding through the valley. As I run, I pass a mother walking in the other direction, pushing a baby in a buggy, with a toddler riding on the back. She looks tired: perhaps she is taking a moment to string together her thoughts whilst the baby sleeps. I used to be you, I think. If I ran past any one of my past selves now they would be baffled by who I have become.

I once thought that running was for keeping fit, perhaps even getting thin. Now that I run two or three times a week, I’m certainly fitter, yet running has made me not smaller, but stronger. More than ever before, I’m conscious of my body, appreciating what it can do. The awful morning that I received a phone call to tell me that another friend had died tragically young, I ran with tears streaming down my face. It seemed an incredible privilege to have a body strong and healthy enough to carry me through the fields on that sunny morning.

Running brings clarity of thought; I have some of my best ideas when I’m running, often pausing to dictate whole paragraphs to my phone, or scribbling down sentences into my notebook when I get home. I love how refreshed I feel when I run in the rain, wind or (very occasionally) snow. Nothing makes me feel more alive than icy raindrops whipping my face as my feet splash through muddy puddles and I take big gulps of cold air.

In the pandemic, running became my source of sanity; a lifeline and a state-sanctioned escape. Leaving behind work, mess and a three-boy homeschool for half an hour, every footfall felt like freedom. My body, head and heart were stronger when I returned, healed by the woods. If there was ever a reason I taught myself to run, this was surely it.

Now, I set out running early before the town wakes up. The fields in the valley are draped in soft, hazy mist. My feet avoid tree roots on the familiar woodland path, and daybreak air is cool on my face. My head feels clear, the day full of possibility.

I have become a runner after all.

Thank you for reading,

Laura x

{A version of this piece was originally published in Lionheart Magazine}