COLUMN
The Run Leeds Project Officer on why trail runners care less about vanity and more about opportunity
In my experience, runners don’t tend to be a vain lot. I mean, how could we be? This is a sport that requires stamina over style, sweat rather than a shimmering glow. The combination of knee-high compression socks with running shorts is a look that no-one over the age of eight should try to pull off.
And yet we don’t give it a second thought because running makes us feel great!
After running 26.2 miles, or any distance for that matter, it just feels plain wrong, to not congratulate your body and its amazing achievements.
I’ve run nearly 20 miles with a friend, before bothering to tell her that a combination of sweat and sun-cream has created a real fly trap on her décolletage. We simply don’t care. We are so used to seeing each other bare-faced and bleary eyed for an early morning run.
At our worst, but yet, also at our best. No real version of ourselves is more stunning than proud and happy post-run glow. And of course, there are the race photos. Always a hideous (and unnecessary, I feel), reminder of how you really looked mid-race. Until shown otherwise I thought I had put on my best... “I’m smiling and enjoying myself” face when I spied the event photographer’s camera lens. However, the result tends to come across as a far less flattering pained expression, mouth hanging open, gasping for air.
No offence to the photographers, who are doing their very best to capture a moving object in a few takes, but does anyone ever actually buy these photos?
As runners we come in all shapes and sizes and, having been overtaken on many occasions, I have come to appreciate that runners come from a diverse range of demographics and proportions. That said, trail runners in particular (and I certainly count myself in this category), do tend to be a gnarly lot. Once we’re past our twenties, we become a sort of undefinable ‘weathered’ age, that could be anywhere between 30 and 70.
