*
I now run on the footpaths by roads that cling to the coastline between Sydney and Wollongong. When I visit my grandfather, I sometimes run around Balmain, Leichhardt, Five Dock and Drummoyne and afterwards, I sit with him on his balcony, watching the boats hum between Drummoyne and Hunters Hill. I run on rocky tracks on the Illawarra Escarpment and on fire trails through dry eucalypts in the Royal National Park. When I can, I return to my old routes around the waterfront, through the Botanical Gardens, across the Bridge. When I’m busy in the city, I run in the gym at the university where I work, and I watch the news on a tiny treadmill screen with headphones twisted into my ears. Usually I run on my own, close to rivers, lakes and oceans, as if to draw replenishment from the water and comfort from the great skies that emerge from them.
The weekend after that last Sydney half marathon, I found myself away from home again. I woke before dawn in Canberra and drove to the National Gallery so that I could watch the sun rise from within a chamber built by the artist James Turrell. Out of the darkness, the sky bloomed yellow, pink and blue.
When it was light enough to run, I set out on the path that circles Lake Burley Griffin. The last time I’d run there, I had mucked up that marathon. The temperature hovered at zero: my ungloved hands were painfully cold, and my throat burned on each inhalation. Heavy banks of mist rose from the water; garnet-coloured leaves caught the first morning sunlight; galahs dug for seeds in grasslands rigid with frost; yellow poplars blazed alongside conifers and eucalypts I couldn’t name; hot-air balloons floated from the horizon at the opposite bank. I ran to stay warm and I ran to buoy my mood and I ran to stay a part of this glorious composition. I ran too because once I’d committed to the loop, I had no other way of getting back to my car. That morning I ran 20 kilometres, and my pace was much faster than it had been in the half marathon I’d completed the week before.
I don’t know where I’ll run my next race, but I do know – at least as I write these lines – that I’ll go out for a run on the weekend, that my pulse will rush, that along the way, or maybe when I’m back at home, sitting on the front step, pulling at my shoelaces, the sky will appear brighter and the water that I drink to quench my thirst will seem extraordinarily clear.
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Acknowledgements
Running might be a solo undertaking but I haven’t written this book on my own. There are many people I’d like to thank for their help in getting this manuscript over the line. Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge the good people at Affirm Press who took a punt on this project, especially Kate Goldsworthy and Martin Hughes, along with Lyn Tranter and Aviva Tuffield.
I know I’ve come close to being a running bore over the years and I’m indebted to all the friends and strangers who have endured my soliloquys on marathons. I’m grateful to those who have talked with me about the ideas in this book and read sections of the manuscript: Ben Allen, Ed Barnes, Jasmine Bruce, Jim Casey, Jarrah Ekstein, Bruce Gardiner, Melissa Gregg, Cait Harris, Jocelyn Hungerford, Adrian Jones, Emma Kearney, Sean Kelly, Rachel Maher, Leah McLennan, Miranda Nagy, Kate O’D, Rachel O’Reilly, Todd Packer, Alecia Simmonds, Damian Spruce, Dan Stacey, Jason Wilson, Geordie Williamson, Alex Wregg, Emma Young.
Thanks to my Albury training advisors: Prue, Tony, Meg and Tess Smith. Thanks too to the speedy Elder tribe for the training advice, the racing company and all the running yarns: Ali and Anna; Danny and Phoebe; Laurie and Elle; Mads and Jamie – and of course, to Anne Pike, for all that and more.
I may never convert my three sisters to running but together they form a fabulous cheer squad: thanks to Lucy Pike and Claudia Robbins for patient enthusiasm; I couldn’t do without the encouragement I receive from Laura Pike in running, writing and life. My grandfather Bruce Menzies has inquired about the progress of this book at least once a week for several years. I’m lucky to have such a staunch supporter, and like him, I’m relieved that it’s finally complete. My partner Daniel Heckenberg has sustained me through the writing of this book, through many long and short runs; I thank him for his love and companionship.
And finally, I’d like to thank my mum and dad, to whom writing this book has brought me closer. I wish they’d had the chance to read it.
Sandro Botticelli, The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti (first episode), c. 1483.
Spyridon Louis enters the stadium to win the 1896 marathon. Women weren’t granted leave to race the Olympic marathon until 1984. Photo: Albert Meyer
Spyridon Louis, the first Olympic marathon gold medallist. Photo: Albert Meyer
The midinettes on the cover of Le Petit Journal, 1903.
A midinette on a Parisian postcard.
Dorando Pietri at the finish line of the 1908 Olympic marathon.
Marie-Louise Ledru at the Tour de Paris marathon, 29 September 1918.
Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France
Violet Piercy runs with her chaperones in ‘The Runner’, a 1927 newsreel.
Image supplied by British Pathé.
Bobbi Gibb finishes the Boston Marathon in 1966. Photo:
Fred Kaplan/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images
Race officials attempt to haul Kathrine Switzer off the course of the 1967 Boston
Marathon. Photo: Paul J. Connell/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
The jogging revolution of the 1970s was also a publishing revolution.
Joan Benoit wins gold for the first-ever women’s Olympic marathon at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984. Photo: Bob Thomas/Getty Images
Paula Radcliffe breaks the women’s world marathon record at the London Marathon in 2003. Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images
A horde of runners jogging up William Street in Sydney’s City2Surf, 2007.
Photo: BigMick/Flickr
No one ever expected Catriona Menzies-Pike
to run a marathon. She hated running, and was a hopeless athlete. When she was twenty her parents died suddenly – and for a decade she was stuck. She started running on a whim, and finally her grief started to move too.
Until very recently, it was frowned upon for women to run long distances. Running was deemed unladylike – and probably dangerous. How did women’s running go from being suspect to wildly popular? How does a high school klutz become a marathon runner? This fascinating book combines memoir and cultural history to explore the rich and contradictory topic of women and running.