Running Like a Girl (24 page)

As I've already touched upon earlier, despite the scaremongering about running making you look older, there is only one aspect to running that can age you: the sun. Hours spent under its glare in summer or winter can be terribly detrimental to the skin. I find it a little difficult to care too much about my skin
aging given that, well, I am aging. But nor am I brimming with enthusiasm for a leathery face. Use an SPF moisturizer and a cap to keep the rays off your face.

The ultimate runner's beauty accessory, it hides you from the sun and resolves the dilemma about what to do with your hair.

A conundrum I have yet to solve fully. A ponytail can swish against the momentum you're trying to run with, a fringe can flap and fall in your eyes, short hair can become wild and unpredictable. Over the years I have relied on a selection of caps, clips, and bands to keep wisps of hair from making me murderous when I should be enjoying running with the wind behind me. Elasticated cloth hairbands ping straight off the back of my head and get lost in a bush. Buns unravel no matter how many pins I put in them. Having tried everything I can think of, I've concluded that the best things for keeping stray hair under wraps are old-fashioned plaits. I run almost Mormon-style. Yes, it's something of a girl-woman look once you're over twenty-five, but if your motives are entirely practical, as mine are, I reckon it's okay.

On the weekend of my first London Marathon, I was in a state of such high anxiety that I am amazed anyone was interested enough in my mission to turn up and support me. Perhaps my most neurotic behavior manifested itself in my preparations for the morning of the Big Day. I had become so terrified of
forgetting something that for two whole weeks before, I had an immaculate display of everything I needed to take laid out over half of my living room floor. The trouble was, I kept having to use some of the things I'd need (my wallet, my running shoes, my house keys), so I had developed a complicated Post-it system in which different colors stood for what I was using. Looking back, I have often thought that I went entirely mad, but in hindsight my hypervigilance was not completely irrational. After all, I was about to leave my home and try to cross one of the world's largest capital cities with
none of my stuff
. Not even a little hobo knapsack. As I've already described, you can feel vulnerable handing over your bag before the race. It's gone, on a big truck, for hours. Your house keys, your ID, the lot. What I didn't know that first time is that the system that gets it back to you is awe-inspiring. On the day you register, you are typically given a large heavy-duty plastic bag with a huge number pinned to it. On marathon day, you have that same number pinned on you, so the chaps on the van can see you coming at the end, find your bag while you're being given your medal and goodie bag, and then present it to you as if by magic. “My bag!” I gasped that first time. “How did you . . . ?”

For what must have been the 2,343rd time that day, the volunteer pointed at the two corresponding numbers, patted my arm, and said, “Well done, you must be very tired.” I was, but I was also happy to have my bag back.

Here's what you'll want to find in yours:

When you finish a long run, your body starts to do some weird things, the likes of which I have experienced only during some of my most epic hangovers. You will be covered in sweat,
probably looking as if you have just emerged from a shower even if you haven't made use of the cooling roadside showers. When you stop running, it's common to start shivering even if it isn't cold or raining. I enjoy selecting my most luxuriously baggy clothes to put on when I'm reunited with my bag. A nice wide-necked sweatshirt and some tracksuit bottoms with a stretchy rollover waistband are the dream. Peel off any of the sweat-soaked running clothes that you think dignity will permit (I'm always happy to stand around in a sports bra at this point; they're way bigger than bikini tops), then layer the baggy clothes over the remainder of your running clothes as soon as you can.

The degree to which feet swell over the course of a marathon is truly extraordinary, and trying to put on any kind of shoe after you've removed your running shoes is like trying to stuff a baby back up the birth canal once it's crying in your arms. Huge socks that can be eased over throbbing feet are the order of the day, even if you have to walk on a bit of pavement in them. If the weather is warm, bring flip-flops.

Compression socks, worn to ease the ache caused by blood gathering in the lower legs after long runs, are significantly harder to get on. They can be stretched delicately over your throbbing calves and feet once you're home and showered.

After months of training, carb monitoring, and water slurping, you might feel that a huge bag of gummy worms will be exactly the treat for the end of your marathon. Think again. The toxic combination of sweating, breathing through your mouth, and
eating and drinking sticky glucose products for hours will mean your teeth feel coated with sugar and your stomach is rumbling in revolt. At most races, they tend to give you sweets as they hand you your medal and T-shirt, so you're more likely to crave crackers, nuts, or chips, though chips aren't ideal for the whole “thousands of bags shoved on vans and lugged across town” bit.

Water isn't too important, as there is generally a lot of it about at the finish line of big events, but you might want to have a bottle in there just in case.

There will be so many places beyond the obvious that you'll want to wipe: your forehead, your feet, your sticky hands, under your arms, behind your ears. Basically, you will feel like a child who has just encountered his first ice cream sundae, and you will want to freshen up as much as possible until you reach a shower.

Even if you have no injuries and aren't expecting any, taking some ibuprofen immediately after a race can help your aching muscles and battered joints recover. Remember, medical staff at events will not give these to runners, as I learned to my cost. It's worth having some to share with others.

If you are a first-time marathoner, there is a strong chance that training will have confused your menstrual cycle a little. Be prepared for the unexpected. Whatever happens, tampons make useful cotton-woolly tools to mop up all sorts of other cuts and grazes that might be incurred en route.

If you're not running with it, don't leave it at home. Though big-city marathons in particular can create a sort of “New Year's Eve 1999, everyone on earth is texting at the same moment” logjam, it is worth a shot in order to contact loved ones and find them at the end or let them know you have made it.

Even if you think you won't need any money because you've thought of everything you could possibly require, it's worth taking some cash or a card, so you can catch the cab home that you thought you would do without or buy the pint you were sure you wouldn't feel like.

As above. No one should put more effort into getting to a start line than in getting home from the finishing line.

Don't lock yourself out. It would be the world's biggest known case of “FML” to be in eyeshot of your bath and bed yet unable to get into them.

Here's what you should have left the house with and discarded once used:

At events, there can be up to an hour of standing around between checking your bag and crossing the starting line. At larger, less competitive marathons, there are often huge crowds and fancy-dress runners, and it can take well over half an hour for slower
runners to get within sight of the starting line. If it's cold or raining, you're going to want to keep warm for this dawdling. It is beyond grim to start a race shivering, with muscles as tightly wound as your nerves. The best thing to do is either scrounge your brother's/boyfriend's/father's skankiest painting clothes or go to a charity shop and spend two or three dollars on a pair of baggy tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie that you don't mind throwing off, never to be seen again, once you're well under way and warm enough. It seems profligate, but most people do it, and the races are well prepared for it. Before the starting pistol has been fired, charity representatives are picking up the items by the side of the road and whisking them off to a better home.

While secondhand hoodies will keep you warm, they won't keep you dry. Garbage bags will. Yes, it sounds a little early Vivienne Westwood dressing the Slits, but it's an incomparably practical system. Just peel one off your roll under the sink, cut a gap in the bottom that's big enough to fit your head through, fold it up, and pop it in your bag. If there's a downpour while you're waiting, you can put it over your head. The bag will come down to about your knees and keep your running clothes dry. As you approach the starting line, you can slip it off and chuck it to the side. I tend to take a couple in case I see someone getting drenched; it would make a great if nerdy meet-cute. (This has yet to happen.)

You might not want or need any of these things, but they're useful to have, if only to share. By the time you reach the starting pens, breakfast can seem like a long time ago. Lunch will
seem even further away. Nutritionally, I am not sure I have ever needed the snacks I've eaten just before setting off, but I always eat them in the spirit of not dying of sudden malnutrition.

I tend to put a big scoop in an old makeup container that has been through the dishwasher. It's good to have on hand in case any straps or seams need relubricating, or to put on dry lips if it's a windy day. Again, it is considerate to take a bit extra in case someone else is in need. I pop it in a trash can before setting off.

I have forgotten to fill in the next-of-kin details on my running number more than once. I like to keep a crappy old ballpoint in my sports bag just in case. Make sure it's not anything inky that might run if it rains. It's easy to toss before setting off, as it's been especially selected for its nearly-at-the-end-of-lifeness anyway.

In the five years I have been running, the design of everything from water bottles to hair ties has improved almost beyond compare. Yet running numbers remain infuriatingly unchanged. How has no one tackled this? I despise them. They serve an invaluable purpose: They are your ID from the moment you surrender your bag until you retrieve it, and they carry contact and medical details in case of injury or security emergency. Yet given the slickness of almost everything else involved in public racing, they seem almost obnoxiously cumbersome. I often catch my wrists on the flapping fabric when I'm pumping my arms as I tackle a hill, and I have ruined a couple of tops by
sweating through the fabric, which rubs against the number, causing the ink to bleed off the back. It is also impossible to affix the number properly if you have boobs. Men are fine; they just pin it onto their nice smooth man chests, popping it right above the stripe of their running club or sponsor vest. Women have to affix it over their stomach area, where things are flatter. This is also an area that you can't see if you have boobs, as well as an area you don't want to be blindly jabbing at with safety pins when you're already juddering with nerves. I've had to resort to asking women I've never met to help me out and am now resigned to pinning it to my top the night before, by lying on my back in my chosen running top like an anxious, carby ladybird, marking the spots where the pins need to go with a finger dipped in some water, taking off the top, and then pinning the number on while the wet dots are visible.

If men had boobs, there would be another way. Oh yes.

For the mind-blowingly old-school method of affixing the aforementioned number to your running top. I hope with all my heart that one day they'll no longer be needed. I keep a small bag in my sports bag at all times.

These seem utterly disgusting and completely contradictory to all received ideas on health or weight loss. But running nine-minute miles for four hours uses over three thousand calories, and you'll need to replace them, fast. In the 1980s, my father used to eat chalky glucose pellets full of sweet orange flavoring, for extra energy. They were not unlike kids' chewable multivitamins you can find today. It was the greatest of treats for us kids
to be allowed to have a corner of one; unadulterated glucose, it sent us into an immediate frenzy of hyperactivity. By the time I ran my first marathon, they'd been replaced by glucose gels—packets of pure glucose in a disgusting gloopy consistency. You have to rip off the top and suck out the grim contents as you run. Invariably, your tense fist will squeeze too tight, leaving you with a spurt of overspill that brings to mind an enthusiastic teenage boy and leaves your hand sticky for the rest of the run. These days I prefer to get my glucose in the form of jelly beans. Even traditional brands like Jelly Belly make sporty versions of their standard jelly beans. These are significantly simpler to ration than the jizzy gels, and easier to carry around. At some races they give them out, but not all. They provide an invaluable boost when all else seems lost.

It is received medical wisdom that you shouldn't run with an injury or take painkillers in order to mask it. I absolutely agree with this advice. But I have learned the hard way that you can hurt yourself on the way round, or see someone else in pain, and a couple of ibuprofen tucked into a little pocket can make you feel invincible even if you don't end up using them. It is easy to feel as if you have lost your grip on reality while doing this, but cut the exact number that you need out of the blister pack and round them to leave nice smooth curving edges. A pointy corner that doesn't seem like a big deal on your bedroom counter can seem like a tiny satanic dagger once it's been jabbing into your hip through your pocket for three hours. The rest of the packet can go in the bag that will meet you at the finish line.