Run like a girl
They told me to run like a girl. And that was exactly what I did.
They told me to run like a girl. My parents dropped me off an hour before the gunfire shot into the night. Their eyes were filled with worry. “How on earth am I going to run in the dark?” “Will they cancel if the rain starts to pour?” “Will it be safe? Please come out of the finish line.” I smile in silence as I close the door. “I’ll be alright. I’ll do my best. I’ll call as soon as I’m done.” They leave half-convinced, and I wave them goodbye with even less certainty. I was thinking of only one thing: I must make it to the end.
They told me to run like a girl. Everyone warned me it was going to be scorching hot. The months of training — with a 2000-meter weekly elevation with thirty to forty kilometers in the mountains (every single weekend!) will be worth it. Just run fast and long before the sun hits your face, they tell me. Once the sun hits, it’s all the heat and mental battle.
They told me to run like a girl. They fired off the gunshot, and the rain started to pour. We started running. I wasn’t thinking of anything else. I couldn’t think of anything else. One foot in front of the other. It was in the middle of the night. The men were wrong. There was no sunlight in the wee hours of the morning. The scorching sun wasn’t there. But neither was the moon. There was no shadow guiding me, no constellations being my compass. I wasn’t burning under the sun’s gaze. My teeth chatter from the cold. The rain poured relentlessly. I remember my mom and dad’s concern for me at the uncertainty of the weather. They had every right to be worried. But I had every right to run. This was something I had to do alone.
They told me to run like a girl. So I did. I knew better. Races like these, the weather won’t announce a postponement. The weather refuses to stop for anyone. The moon won’t appear under the cloudless night just because I needed her to. The rain won’t stop me from running, and neither will the heartbreak.
They told me to run like a girl. And that was exactly what I did. Months of training led me to run a 30-mile race. I took what I could, I drank what they offered, and continued running. I couldn’t stop. I had to make it to the finish line. I had to continue.
But I ran too fast and burned out too quickly. With a half-marathon to go, everything came crashing down. How I barely ate anything the past week. How my heart was just broken the week before the big race. How I started to run for the love of it, and now I’m running to escape everything.
They told me to run like a girl. So I ran like the ghosts in my head came to life and I had no choice but to escape from them. I ran like a girl like I was chased by a man I had to lose in the woods. Because that’s what we fear right? Where men dream of running fast and long to chase the dragons and imagine fantasy worlds and doing imaginary quests, I had to run imagining a stranger chasing me. Little did I know I was running from the ghosts that haunted me.
I ran like a girl until I couldn’t run anymore. Then I walked even when my legs refused to function, even when it hurt to breathe. Because that’s what it means to be a girl: to run until you can’t, to walk until you’re crawling, to keep going, when everyone tells you to stop — especially when they tell you to stop.
I ran like a girl and felt my legs give one last push at the final mile. My lungs felt like they were going to burst, and my legs were threatening to give away. But not yet. The finish line was in my sight, and my eyes were glued tight to the end.
I screamed in pain as I sprinted to the finish line. No one was there to greet me. I didn’t expect it to. In a way, at least I knew I could do it alone. If I ran an ultramarathon by myself, I have the comfort I could do impossibly hard things in the future.
I ran like a girl. And damn I am proud of it.
