Running Like a Girl by Alexandra Heminsley Page A

atmosphere became more like that of a carnival or feast day than the earlier reverence. Thick black speakers belted out relentless motivational music. A cheesy DJ read dedications and good-luck messages. A gospel choir would not have surprised me. Half an hour later, I spotted one.
    It was an enormous spectacle, and we were irredeemably a part of it. Numbed by the volume of activity around me, I handed over my bag with barely a second thought.
    Relieved not to have missed any trains or broken any legs en route, my brother and I became almost hysterical, the mood of the crowd sweeping us up in nervous anticipation. Nibbling on crackers and bananas, we joined the hordes of runners leaning against trees doing last-minute stretches, and took silly photos of each other in our running vests. Maybe it would be funafter all, we started to tell each other, glancing around. Everyone seemed to be okay. I relaxed into the idea of spending the day in Greenwich Park, getting to know my new friends, my fellow pilgrims. Then, suddenly, we were called to the starting enclosures. Just as suddenly, I desperately wanted to go home.
    Runners at the London Marathon line up by expected finish times. The fastest runners leave first so they don’t get trapped behind the rest of us—the nervous, the slow, and the becostumed. I was divided into a pen based on my anticipated time, as predicted six months earlier on the application. The me who had filled in that form now seemed as foreign as the professional athletes warming up for the BBC cameras. I’d had no idea what I might be capable of; the prospect of finishing had filled me with wide-eyed wonder. Consequently, I had no recollection of what I had stated as my predicted time back in October, and it was only when we collected our race numbers that I discovered I’d gone for the slowest time possible. My brother, who had done some basic research, had not. He was due in a pen two hundred meters away. He turned and grinned at me. “Good luck!” he said, stretching his arms out for a hug and doing his best to mask his own nerves. “You’ll probably win!”
    My baby brother, heading off without me. My bottom lip wobbled. “Have an amazing time,” I replied, trying not to look flustered by the huge number of runners flocking toward the starting enclosures. “See you at the end—and text me when you’ve finished!”
    I walked toward my pen, which seemed to be populated by the elderly and people dressed as cartoon characters. My cheeks burned with shame as I realized that my low expectations for myself had labeled me as one of this lot. I looked around and smiled, hoping for a similarly aged face that might take pityon me and smile back. Everyone else seemed to be with someone, bonding over something. The crowd packed in around me, emphasizing the aching loneliness that washed over me. I felt something like the homesickness that I had felt as an eight-year-old at boarding school for the first time. The thought of the run no longer bothered me. But the thought of doing it alone, with nothing but my thoughts for the next few hours, flooded me with anxiety.
    Another problem I had never even considered was creeping up on me—my fear of crowds. I have never been to a music festival; I avoid big sales at the mall; and I skulk around at the beginnings and ends of big sporting events until almost everyone has left. I have jumped fences in Hyde Park and run through the trees in the dark to avoid the drunken crowds coming out of concerts. I always, always seek to avoid my worst nightmare: being caught up in an unpredictable tsunami of humans. If possible, I will walk rather than take a packed train, or I’ll wait until a crowd has passed, so horrified am I of being moved by a mass of bodies in a direction I can’t control.
    I looked around the pens, occasionally bouncing on tiptoes to check on the river of people ahead, and saw that this was exactly