The sun has finally come to North Yorkshire, and let me tell you, it is VERY welcome! At the weekend, I ran my first ultra since November last year, and it was a LOT of fun. The race was called the ‘Ultra Unique’, and it was organised by the brilliant Punk Panther endurance events. It was a concept that I’d never come across before, and, for anyone who wants to enter the world of ultra-running, I think it would make a brilliant, low-stress, first ultra. It also gave me a flavour of what running might look like if the element of competitiveness was taken out of it.
Every single runner was running a different distance from everyone else (from 28.5 miles upwards - and no, I don’t want to get into a debate about whether 28.5 miles “counts” as a “proper” ultra). The distances were made up of a combination of circular routes that all began and ended at the car park between Swinsty and Fewston reservoirs. So, for example, I was running the 29-mile race, and my 29 miles were made up of a first loop that measured c. 8 miles, then a second loop of c. 6.5 miles, a third loop of c. 5.5 miles, a fourth loop of c. 4.7 miles, a fifth loop of 3.7 miles, and then a short out-and-back across a bridge to make up the total distance. Each loop was very different from the next, so I felt like I got roughly the same variety of scenery and terrain as in a traditional ultra; and the fact that each loop decreased in distance was reassuring. Psychologically, it felt much easier than running 29 continuous miles. And the major benefit was that, between each loop, the timer stopped and runners could go back to their cars, get changed, have a snack, buy an ice-cream, use the car park toilets, sit and chat, and lie in the sun. So we didn’t have to carry very much when we were actually running, nor stress about where the next toilet stop might be. It was INCREDIBLY civilised. AND, because each runner was covering a different distance, every competitor was the “winner” of their particular race – we all got “1st place” certificates! Here’s me, looking ridiculously proud of winning a race for the first time in my life.
Of course, the certificates were a bit of a joke; or rather, “winner” was defined on the certificates, not by beating other participants, but by simply turning up and completing the distance. The race made me think about how running events might feel if the element of competition was removed. When I was working on In Her Nature, I was struck by how the notion of competition – and everything that goes with it, including timing, record-keeping, aiming to be the first or the fastest, and the aspiration to continually “improve” – wasn’t intrinsic to sport from the very beginning. It was a much later addition. Before the second half of the nineteenth century, the word ‘sport’ had denoted a leisure activity that was undertaken for fun, in a spirit of playfulness and irreverence. (Think of Shakespeare: “as flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport”). Physical activity was often undertaken in a slightly haphazard, improvisatory way, with an emphasis on participation and socialising, rather than strict adherence to rules and regs.
But this all changed in the second half of the nineteenth century, as sport became appropriated as a way to take boys in hand, and train them up to be leaders of their nation and the empire. As a tool to enforce discipline, sport needed to be organised, and a whole host of sporting activities were more rigidly regulated by rules, and by concepts such as fairness, competition, and striving. The meaning of the word ‘sport’ changed: by 1884, a writer in Longman’s Magazine was defining ‘sport’ as activities governed by ‘ruling bodies’. As I write in In Her Nature (p. 237), this is still the dominant meaning of sport today:
The organisation of sport had some benefits. It created a context in which people explored the outer limits of physical achievement, and it also created a number of professional roles in sport. But I think that we did lose something too, when sport became synonymous with timing and records and constant improvement. Firstly, the structures of organised sport – the rules of competitions, and clubs, and facilities – provided a means for men to formally exclude women; which they did, very comprehensively. And the organisation of sport also had a profound psychological effect on how we think about the role of physical activity in our lives. On p. 369 of IHN, I write about how very VERY hard it is to think about how a running life might feel, if any element of improvement or competition (either with other people, or with ourselves) was removed:
There are already some races (such as the Terry Fox Run) in which participation – and the joy of socialising with other runners, and soaking in the scenery, and feeling good in our bodies – replaces competition as the guiding principle. And the Punk Panther Ultra Unique gave me a taste of what a running event might look like when the element of competition is downplayed. Because we were all running different distances from one another, there was no element of racing against other competitors: we were guaranteed to “win” our own races, as long as we finished. And it really wasn’t a race in which I felt like I was racing against myself, either. It felt like a bit of a cheat that the timer stopped between loops: although my official running time was 6 hours 18 mins for covering 29 miles, my elapsed time (including all my breaks between loops) was over 7 hours 15 mins, so it felt pointless to compare my performance to other runs of a similar distance. And let me tell you, it was bloody lovely, and so low stress, to simply run, without any part of my consciousness worrying about timing. There was no temptation to berate myself for having lost fitness over the last year or so; and every other runner I saw was greeted as a friend, rather than a competitor to beat. Punk Panther are hopefully holding the event again next year, and I STRONGLY recommend it. Here’s a taste of the scenery:
ParkWatch
In other news, I want to draw your attention to ParkWatch, which is taking place THIS bank holiday weekend. The RSPB organises the ‘Big Garden Birdwatch’, the Daily Mail operates a wildlife census, and there is a ‘Great Yorkshire Creature Count’ and a ‘Hedgehog Housing Census’. All create a national picture of wildlife populations by asking the public to count birds and animals in their local vicinity. This weekend, from 27-29 May, there is going to be the first ever ‘ParkWatch’, organised by the brilliant charity Make Space for Girls. It’s a census to count, not animals, but another endangered species - the presence of teenage girls in public spaces.
In 2015, health policy researcher Kelly Hallman published a study showing that, during adolescence, ‘girls’ worlds shrink, while boys’ expand.’ Similar studies over the last decade, across the globe, find that ‘adolescence is a time when the world expands for boys and contracts for girls’, and that, during teenagehood, girls retreat to their bedrooms. Public spaces – from schools and libraries, to sports facilities, parks and pavements – become places that teenage girls increasingly associate with danger, harassment and criticism. The knock-on effects are catastrophic: in being deterred from public space, girls lose out on education, work experience, health and fitness, and they are unable to develop skills essential to public roles in adulthood.
In recent years, there’s been a heartening amount of research in which teenage girls have been asked what they’d like to see in parks. But there are some problems with this methodology: one problem is that girls are socialised to nod and smile and agree, so there’s a danger that some survey participants have simply said what they think the interviewer wants to hear. What we’re lacking is data based on observations of how teenage girls are actually using parks: do they gravitate towards swings or basketball courts? Do they sit, alone or with friends, or do they run around or play games? Are they there at all, and if so, what is the ratio of girls to boys?
Make Space For Girls is running a national ParkWatch campaign this weekend, in which they’re asking the public – that means YOU – to go to their local park and count how many teenagers are using the facilities, and how many of them are girls. Many councils express commitment to designing public spaces to meet girls’ needs, and this census will provide some of the data necessary to make those decisions.The census form will go live on the Make Space For Girls website tomorrow (26 May), and you can fill it out any time between 27-29 May. There’s a comprehensive FAQs page too!
Have a lovely sunny bank holiday weekend!
I enjoyed reading this. Great that you enjoyed the Punk Panther unique ultra format! I think I am very different in my attitude to running, though I do very much enjoy being in the moment I am very competitive both with myself and with others. And continually strive to improve, even though in real terms I am not fast at all. It’s lovely to see a completely different perspective in your blog.