It was probably late summer, but it may not have been. The evening has assumed a misremembered vividness that seems stronger now, a few years later, than it did even at that becalmed time, when the capital was gridlocked by a tube strike and it became something stranger, more blurry, more joyful.
The strap-hangers had been forced to mix it with the pedestrians and motorists above ground. I recall a carnival mood. There was a filmic element to it all; brake lights, traffic lights, lamp lights, competing against a brilliant sunset.
I was going to a friend’s in west London and decided to run from work in King’s Cross, six miles away, a change of clothes and a bottle of wine in my backpack. I reached the Embankment and that’s when I saw them: runners, hundreds of them, grouped into tight battalions, bossing the fat, tree-lined road that skims alongside the Thames and forms the final miles of the London marathon.
Mostly clad in Lycra shorts and vests, they weaved through the traffic, breezing past the pedestrians, many blowing whistles, heading east to west, north to south. It reminded me of the scene in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, when the private army appears on the post-apocalypse horizon, forcing the desperate souls trying to evade capture into hiding. There was a swagger about the runners that wasn’t wholly attractive. The road was theirs and they knew it.
But that night, when London stopped moving, was when I got it, when I understood where I belonged, when I realised what I’d say when someone next asked my nationality. There is a nation of runners out there, I remember thinking, and that’s where I live.
Not among its elite, obviously. I run five or six times a week, between 40 and 70 miles. I’m not fast, and my marathon times stubbornly refuse to shorten by any significant measure. I don’t look good in running kit. I’ve an awkward gait. I’m also an immigrant. I’ve lived in my adopted country for around six years, not long enough to claim full nationality. That status is reserved not just for the gods – the Paulas, the Mos and the Jo Paveys; among runners it’s also conferred on those who perform superhuman feats as they hold down a day job, raise a family, get on with their everyday lives. I’ve met a couple in their late seventies who’ve run as many marathons as they are old. A colleague told me of a man he’d met who’s run more than 700 marathons. On 6 August 2014, Amy Hughes, a sports therapist from Shropshire, ran the first of 53 marathons across Britain and went on to create a new world record for completing the most 26-milers in consecutive days. Simon Wheatcroft is an ultramarathon runner from Doncaster who runs thousands of miles each year. He’s been blind since he was 17.
The pages of any running magazine are now crammed with tales of the ostensibly unexceptional achieving the exceptional. These tales, in turn, inspire us mortals who are rapidly growing in number. Figures from Sport England reveal that 1.25 million people in England ran once a week in 2005, 3% of the adult population. Last year that number had risen to 2.1 million, 5% of the population. Any day of the week, but especially at weekends, the country’s canal paths, parks, roads and trails resound to the soft slap of rubber soles. True, we have a way to go before we become like Kenya or Ethiopia, where it seems at dusk entire cities turn out to run, but we’re on an upward trajectory.
But what is driving this newfound desire for motion?
It’s tempting to place heavy emphasis on external, specific factors, such as the 2012 London Games. The Olympics inspired hundreds of thousands to become involved in sport. Running has benefited from this surge in enthusiasm for physical activity. There has also been the emergence of a vibrant grassroots running culture. Online sites such as Fetch Everyone have cleverly harnessed the internet to get people running. Parkrun, the free, timed, 5km events that take place each week, has attracted nearly 640,000 participants at 311 locations across the UK since it began in 2004. But these factors are specific to the UK. The number of people running in other countries is increasing, too. I would argue that something deeper, more fundamental is going on. Here’s my theory.
In 2012 the British Medical Journal published a widely discussed paper that analysed a cohort of adults who had sought help for depression. Some were offered up to three face-to-face sessions and 10 telephone calls with a “trained physical activity facilitator” over eight months. The paper concluded: “The addition of a facilitated physical activity intervention … did not improve depression outcome or reduce use of antidepressants.”
The inference drawn by many was that physical exercise – and by implication, running – had no impact on alleviating depression. The paper caused a furore and left runners confused. Many people swear that running helps enhance their mood. For my part, running brings a clarity and calmness, an enhanced concentration and creativity, that I’ve not found anywhere else. This “space” can be borderline addictive. The main character in my new novel, Toxic, uses running almost like a drug. Morse had his beer and wine; Rebus his whisky and cigarettes; my character, Kate Pendragon, finds solace in running.
And this, for me, is why the BMJ paper was always going to produce its findings. Running is not about interventions. These are antithetical to its essence. Running is about exercising personal choice, about defining personal freedom. You do it solely on your own terms. You choose where you go, the speed you travel, the distance covered. You’re governed only by your physical limitations and it’s supremely democratic. There are practically no barriers to entry. As a spokeswoman for Sport England explains: “It’s a very accessible sport – all you need is a pair of trainers and off you go.”
In an increasingly complex and disturbing world, when our sense of self, as engendered by a belief that we can exert real influence over our lives, appears fragile, and where rates of depression are rising, the simple act of lacing up a pair of trainers becomes a means of liberation.
Charities, such as the one I’m running for in this year’s London marathon, the Children’s Society, cannily tap into this. They understand that yoking this latent hunger for personal empowerment to a good cause makes a formidable combination. In this light we begin to understand what motivates those people running to save the rhino, to beat cancer, to tackle sickle-cell anaemia. They’ve chosen to make a stand. Running is transformed into a political act, an overt display of physical and mental defiance.
This motivation has not materialised out of the ether. Rather, I would argue, it is a direct response to the challenges posed by modernity. It’s common now to hear that people are disillusioned with politics, that they believe, however they vote, that nothing will change, that a globalised world poses threats to governments and nation states that can no longer be countered.
In essence, people feel increasingly powerless. At the same time, more and more of them are running. Go figure.
