How participation in the sport is more than a matter of physical fitness
I first took up running in primary school. I can recall the kindergarten race which gave me the short-lived notion that I might be good at this: my then-bully tried to wrangle me to the ground so I couldn’t claim first place in a short dash at the school athletics carnival. She was unsuccessful, and my running prowess was enough to deter her taunting thereafter.
The achievement of such accolades was proved short-lived, however, when I pulled my hamstring in Year 8. Having to give up on an ill-fated affair with hurdles, I stopped competing. I didn’t rediscover running until Year 12, when it became my preferred outlet amidst the stress of senior schooling.
Short strides and laboured breathing, the markers of my poor fitness, began to accompany me on the forested descent past a local creek. Birdsong, babbling water, and the smell of muddied overgrowth merged into a brief mental respite. In that stretch of distance, I found my mind could go quiet. Better yet, in the hours that followed, I’d hum with the analgesic pull of endorphins.
Source: The New York Times
This became my convalescence, in due time, from the murkier depths of adolescent mental health. I’d run in single-digit temperatures with arms and legs exposed to moonlight; go out for an unascertained period of time and return two hours later, hit the boardwalk of the bay near my home, then scale the moss-slick steps which bisected the homebound street.
I never ran with music. It is the one condition I have maintained to this day. Others, I have foregone. I now take fuel with me out of necessity, shoved into shorts pockets or else a MacPac, with fluid likewise, at hand. As my distances have escalated, so, too, has the spiritual fervour with which I treat running, surely disquieting my family members.
It is a privilege to have a coping mechanism for so many of life’s unforeseeable difficulties. It is a privilege to possess one’s body and, in so doing, affirm one’s possession of the mind.
Running is, after all, an exercise in bodily autonomy. When you run, it is a conscious decision to hitch your knees upward, pace your legs, and journey through the world. It is a four-dimensional interface in adventure, meditation, and release. However, running is also an act which often declares socioeconomic advantage.
To run means having the means to do so – the time, safety, and autonomy. Financial security cannot be overlooked; individuals in the top bracket of wealth disproportionately represent the majority of global runners. It makes sense. Looking beyond personality attributes, running as a repeat leisure activity corresponds with the disposable income that enables it, as well as the comfortable conditions which render intentional pain an attractive challenge.
To pursue wellbeing objectives through running entails health literacy and the physical capacity to do so. High-income earners tend to have greater health literacy and health outcomes in Australia than their poorer socioeconomic counterparts.
Running in the way that I do – whenever so taken by the urge, overwhelmed by life decisions, or wishing to see a new place on foot – is privileged. I have the time to spare as a university student. I’m living at home while I study, so my available daylight hours are freed from the burden of full-time work. I have the financial means to buy new shoes when I inevitably wear my current pair down. I have access to robust and reliable pathways, roads, and a geography of place not fragmented by political instability, conflict, or public health risks. I live in a relatively safe and affluent area, and can guarantee as much, given the hours and distances I have run alone.
This does not mean that running as a woman is without its risks. Several weeks ago, a 59-year old woman was attacked while on a run in broad daylight in Canberra. Running in public spaces as a woman risks receiving unwanted attention and physical, verbal or sexual harassment. The onus of responsibility to mitigate such risks is disproportionately placed upon women in spaces designed for men.
Hundreds join in on a solidarity walk in support of the 59-year old woman attacked in Canberra, Source: ABC NEWS
Moving beyond the domestic, access to running is further stratified by gender when considered internationally. The visibility of female runners in the west is arguably incidental to our political independence and civil rights, which on paper grant us the same status as men and the attending liberties on our time and bodies. To run outside as a woman, perhaps dressed in a sports bra and shorts in summertime, or to run at night after university and work – this is a freedom denied to many women all over the world.
As I write this, I think about women for whom male guardianship laws exist in Middle Eastern and North African countries, which govern movement and can lead to arrest or forced detention when approval to leave one’s household is not sanctioned by a male guardian. I think about women consigned to the private space of the home, the female body made dangerous to social order and religious doctrine. When I run, I can only see this body’s strength and capacity.
To have the body exist as an aid to ideology that suppresses human rights directly opposes the philosophy of running and free movement.
Running is further privileged in that it hinges on the integrity of public safety. I think about runners in Palestine, for whom the sport has been made inaccessible by conflict. To run not out of fear of one’s life, but out of independence and joy; that should be a guaranteed right.
I think about people for whom immobility and geographic blockades are a fact of life, where the unconstrained distance of a marathon, 42.2km, would be impossible to fulfil in one linear direction. The Gaza Strip is 41 km in length. To run this distance today would be unthinkable, given the extensive system of military checkpoints, damaged infrastructure, detritus of prior conflict, and Israel’s ongoing war against Palestine.
I think, too, about people who cannot run due to chronic illness or medical treatment.
With each instance of immobility I inscribe on the page, I am humbled by the latent power of our legs. This sport is a lifeline to many of us. It is also an ideal for the type of world we should never cease to create, one in which all of us have the bodily integrity, autonomy, and health to move freely and without fear of persecution or death. A world in which anyone can run, and run far.
Really, running is just another way of giving thanks for everything that is good and in our favour; the legs that still move, the heart that still beats. It is my way of embodying a greater universal citizenship, no matter how small-minded my worldview can be at times. When I run, I am absorbed into a greater stream of people, city, and landscape. When I run, I become more human.