Running Like a Girl by Alexandra Heminsley

remained: The only way to find out if I was physically—or mentally—capable of finishing a marathon was to try and run a marathon.

6
The London Marathon
    If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon.
    â€”Kathrine Switzer
    I could not have done more to prepare for my first London Marathon, yet I have never been less prepared for anything in my life. My mental image of the starting blocks was not dissimilar to that of an egg-and-spoon race at a school sports day: a handful of eager enthusiasts willing to give it their very best. The reality felt more like the chaos of a music festival. I was exhausted before I reached the starting line.
    The day before, my parents and sister came up to London to cheer me and my brother along. We all went to the local pub for a high-carb lunch. I walked delicately, worried that the slightest knock could damage my chances of reaching the finish line with a misplaced bruise or sprain. I did not eat delicately; I polished off a bowl of seafood pasta as if it were my death-row meal. Then my sister ordered us shots of sambuca, convincing us that it would wear off long before bedtime.
    Before I went to bed, I checked my sports bag, all packed for the next morning, and laid out my running gear next to it. When bedtime arrived, I found myself wishing for more sambuca. I had never been more awake. Perhaps it was nerves, perhaps it was my body swimming in carbohydrates. Either way, I slept lightly, lying awkwardly in a variety of positions that I thought would rest my muscles as much as possible, while a million worst-case scenarios painted my mind in Technicolor.
    Within seconds of my alarm sounding, I was whipping up scrambled eggs with a speed and focus that would have made my military father proud. I swallowed them grimly, still full from the day before. Their relentless rubberiness reminded me of school food: necessary nutrition and nothing more. I dressed, checked my bag another six or seven times, and sat on the very edge of the sofa, waiting for the taxi. Twenty minutes later, I was approaching Charing Cross station to meet my brother. His training had gone more smoothly, but he was just as nervous as I was. We had shared late-night anxieties, bizarre and hitherto unfamiliar food cravings, and endless tips, and he had provided a steadfast level of support since day one. I could barely wait to see him.
    I had imagined he’d be easy to spot, a lone nerdy runner in a swarm of London day-trippers and homeward-bound nightclubbers. The reality made me draw breath. The only passengers at Charing Cross were runners, a sea of tense, solitary figures in wicking fabric. Eventually his face appeared in the swarm. There was barely space for us all on the trains heading toward Greenwich, and we shuffled onto the carriages in eerie silence. I assumed everyone else was an old-timer, destined for an impressive three-hour finish time and a quick fry-up before heading home. I know better now: That silence was a result ofus all thinking the same thing. Everyone was nervous, whatever their fitness or experience.
    We poured out of the station at Blackheath and began the fifteen-minute walk across the grass. The weather reports had been mixed all week, predicting everything from rain and wind to sun and unicorns. As we headed through southeast London, the air was crisp and clear. I imagined I had joined a cult that met in a secret London. We were marching to some sort of promised land, searching for answers from a leader we had yet to meet. It was an hour before the official start time; what would we do until then? What else did this strange pilgrimage hold for us? The answer, it turned out, was Porta-Potties.
    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