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The first runner – it’s now Farouk – has appeared already. He’s setting a storming pace, but the other elites aren’t far behind. I instinctively grab my camera, taking photos of him coming up over the rise and towards the checkpoint. A whole series of cars arrive now – the medical teams and the rest of the volunteers. ‘Where’s Nabil?’ I ask Dale, who’s at the next table. When we’d last seen them, Nabil had been ahead.
‘No clue. Maybe something happened?’
Farouk enters the checkpoint via my table and I photograph the volunteer topping up his water bottles – although it appears he hasn’t drunk that much over the course often miles. His acclimatization to running in this kind of heat means he’s more efficient with his hydration intake. The next person to appear is Rupert, his dark hair peeking out beneath a bright red cap. Then, finally, Nabil strides into view, along with the first of the women: to my surprise it’s Adrienne, looking strong.
My throat catches, as I strangle down tears. Watching her run – it’s like the events of seven years ago never happened.
If I had my choice, I’d never have seen or spoken to Adrienne again. I’d blocked her after Ibiza and dodged her approaches until she finally got the message and gave up. Yet life weaved a tangled web that kept us connected – not least because I couldn’t help falling in love with her ex-husband.
I’d met Pete a few months before Ibiza, at a race – naturally. I was crewing for Yasmin during a fifty-mile race in northern California, waiting around for hours at the halfway checkpoint for her to pass through. The conditions had been atrocious that year, and some of the support teams were held up when the main road to the trail flooded. Pete had hobbled into the checkpoint, injured, and with no crew in sight. I’d taken pity on him and offered him one of my homemade flapjacks as a pick-me-up. We got to chatting and he DNF’d the race to continue the conversation. He always says it was the luckiest twisted ankle he’d ever had.
After the race and her incredible performance, Yasmin and I were asked to join Coach Glenn’s training camp in Ibiza. And Pete had asked me out on a date.
Seven years since everything changed.
16
Stella
Seven years earlier
Ibiza
When Yasmin runs, the sun’s rays follow her like a spotlight. Her skin lights up, suffused with gold, so it’s impossible to take your eyes off her. Her smile might have something to do with that too. Even after an eighteen-mile training run in the intense Spanish heat her smile is broad, like she’s won the lottery. I told her that once. She’d laughed and agreed with me. ‘But I have won the lottery, Stella. Look at what my life is!’
On a day like today I can almost see what she means. She’s running along a cliff edge, the ozonic, salty sea air scented with orange blossom, to a background track of waves crashing against the white-sand beach far below. Through my lens she casts a navy silhouette against a dusky blue sky, her arms pumping, legs pounding the earth, the tail of her signature pink hijab streaming out behind her. I still don’t fully understand it, the desire to push your body and mind to endure silly amounts of pain and suffering for the sake of a race. Yet watching Yasmin makes it seem beautiful. Natural. She was born to do this. She would run forever if given the chance.
I can see why she’s come here. For a week she’s beenintensively training under the guidance of the legendary ultrarunning coach Glenn Knight, alongside four of his top performers. There’s Adrienne, Yasmin’s idol. The mountain-loving phenom, who’s been beating men and women alike in impossibly long races in the most brutal conditions. The ‘rock goat’, they call her, because she’s the greatest of all time on the skyrunning courses. She’s the physical opposite of Yasmin in so many ways – fair-haired, shorter, slight, like a stiff breeze might blow her over – but the rock goat is as stubborn as she is fast. She doesn’t give up, and, as a result, she’s a champion.
Then there’s Keri and Ivanka, university students and best friends from Ireland and Poland respectively, on the running team at Manchester University, where Glenn lectures. They are both sub-2:45 marathoners – but with a burning desire to make their names out on the trails. As if 26.2 miles isn’t long enough – some people are nuts.
Winona is another relative newcomer, spotted by Glenn at an ultra in Colorado. She’d come from nowhere and ended up on the podium, with two broken bones in her foot and a dislocated shoulder from a fall. Grit personified.
And finally there’s Yasmin herself. My half-sister. The nineteen-year-old with talent bursting from every pore. The one who set up her own backyard ultra in the garden of her south London studio flat and ran over a hundred miles in twenty-four hours, documenting every moment of it online, going viral.
I’m the only non-runner here. Glenn hadn’t wanted me to come. He harped on about the sanctity of the camp, how they needed to feel like they were cut off from the restof the world, totally devoted to their craft. No family or support crew permitted.
He only changed his tune when Yasmin told him who my father was.
Because this training camp has only one mission: to get a woman to win an Ampersand race. The ultimate ultramarathon test. And he’s gathered only the best of the best to the island.
To that end, I’m the secret weapon. Emphasis on secret. No one outside the camp is to know that I’m here. I don’t even tell Pete, which has the added benefit of not having to reveal to Adrienne that I’ve started dating her ex.
But the truth is, I hardly know anything about my dad’s races, not really. The last time I’d been to one, I was seventeen. That didn’t stop Glenn from grilling me for every detail over dinner.
‘They say he likes to push the boundaries of what humans are capable of – what we’re willing to endure. Would you say he’s a sadist?’
‘Probably,’ I reply with a grim laugh. Then I shake my head. ‘Not a sadist. More like … a scientist,’ I say, paraphrasing my mom’s words. ‘It’s not that he enjoys watching people in pain. But he wants to know how far someone will go. Each race is an experiment. He tweaks the variables every year, then sits back and watches the result.’
‘So his runners are like rats in a maze.’
‘Rats who volunteer,’ I counter. ‘He doesn’t force anyone to run.’
‘He pushes others – but has he ever pushed himself?’
‘All the time. He devises challenges for himself – things like crossing the US on foot. Walking to Alaska fromMexico. His own pilgrimage through the Sahara. He doesn’t do it for records or acclaim, though. Sometimes he doesn’t tell anyone what he’s doing. Just comes back with the stories.’
‘So why, then?’