Page 55 of Runner 13

Adrienne

I appear to be in a deep bowl. The sun is high in the sky – according to my watch, it’s gone noon and soon we’ll be hitting the hottest part of the day.

I say we. There is no ‘we’. There’s only me.

I’ve lost track of the miles. One hundred?

One hundred and fifty? I stagger from one water cache to the next, sometimes searching for that tiny glow stick for what feels like hours, hallucinating lights that are popping up all over the place, like moles in the ground, disappearing the moment I get close.

People say that running races is good practice for the challenges life throws at you.

But I don’t agree. A race has a course to follow: a starting line and a finish.

Even if that course takes me through the harshest environments on the planet – through snow and ice in Norway, driving rain and bogs in Yorkshire, or the supreme heat and brutal sandstorms of the Sahara Desert – I know that if I put one foot in front of the other, I’m making progress in the right direction.

If there’s anything I’ve learned about life, it’s that it’s nothing like that.

I’ve spent years ploughing ahead in a direction I thought was the right one, only to have the ground give way beneath my feet.

One foot in front of the other? How can you keep going, keep making progress, when at any point you could hit a dead end through no fault of your own? Every step in life is into the unknown.

It’s why sometimes I feel like I can’t step forward at all.

Paralysis sets in. I get terrified that I’m going to make a wrong move.

It’s why the Ampersand races never held any appeal for me. I understand why Boones does it. To emulate life itself. To make each step unpredictable. To just survive one of his races is to win.

So why? Why are they so popular? Why did I agree to do it, when I know that failure is almost a guarantee, and the only inevitability is suffering?

I think after everything I’ve been through these last seven years, I understand myself better now.

And I understand the Ampersand races better too.

The joy is in the expectation of failure.

If success is a given, it’s no longer interesting.

It’s not about self-flagellation or a masochistic desire to feel pain.

It’s about putting myself in the arena. About satisfying that little voice inside that asks can you do a little bit more?

A sneaking suspicion that if I truly asked myself that question – really tested it – I would find out that I have no limit.

Ha. Me too.

The arrogance.

Whatever limit there is, I’ve found it. If there’s a precipice, I’ve tumbled off it. I’m so tired I keep falling asleep on my feet. I want to cry. I want to sleep. I want to curl up into a ball and succumb to oblivion.

My muscles no longer protest every step, but instead they feel like they’ve turned to molasses. I even glance behind me, to see if someone has strapped an anchor to my back that’s dragging in the sand. But there’s nothing there except my footprints.

I stare ahead. In front of me I no longer see the route. I see an all-encompassing darkness, the mouth of the pain cave yawning open. I have no choice but to hurtle straight into it. ‘Hello, my old friend,’ it says to me. ‘Welcome home.’

The pain cave. A familiar place for any ultrarunner.

Pain is a given in this sport, something I’ve become intimately acquainted with.

To run these distances is to learn to accept that it is going to hurt.

The metaphor of the cave is apt – it’s a dark place, but it’s a shelter.

It means that I’m alive. It means I’m moving. It means I’m enduring.

Yet this pain cave is anything but comfortable. There’s barely any cushioning in there, my brain colliding against the sharp, jagged edges of things I don’t know. How far is left? How many more hours until this is over?

I have a choice now. I can keep the cave this bleak, dark place – only marginally better than letting my mind deal with reality.

Or I can pick up a paintbrush and apply it to the walls of the cave, fill it with colour and life, make it an enjoyable place to be.

I can make this a place of beauty, not despair.

For a time it works. I distract myself, covering the walls with pictures of my favourite things – of Ethan, of the fells, of dips in shallow mountain pools and the scent of heather in the air.

I actually feel my body unfurl and relax as I think of the lakes – diving into the refreshing cool water, glistening in the late-summer evening light – or as I picture curling up with a novel in front of my little wood burner.

But the cave doesn’t play fair – and lurking deep inside there are also monsters.

Memories I’ve tried so hard to bury spring to life, playing in front of my eyes.

‘You’re my star runner,’ Coach Glenn says.

In front of him I see a steaming plate of battered fish and salty chips.

We’re in Poole; we’ve just done a huge training block along the Jurassic Coast, pounding the cliffs and the relentless changes of elevation.

He’s put me on a programme designed to harden up SAS soldiers.

Despite the fact that I run because I love it, he wants to push me.

Annoyingly, my body is responding to it.

I’m getting better – running faster, with more endurance, and winning races.

Coach Glenn knows me better than I know myself.

I reach out to grab a chip off his plate, but he bats my hand away.

Instead, it’s a pre-prepared meal out of a Tupperware for me – quinoa and butternut squash providing a surge of carbohydrates, grilled turkey for protein, Greek yoghurt for fat.

Every micro- and macronutrient has been calculated to give my body the optimum opportunity for recovery and growth.

But sometimes a girl just wants a chip, you know?

Coach pops one in his mouth and chews, grinning.

He knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s not only the physical side he trains.

It’s the mental resilience. Sometimes that means putting up with his taunts, dealing with emotions like jealousy and resentment, learning how to channel that into motivation for a better, stronger run.

For some reason now, out in the desert, I can taste that mouthful of grains and cold squash. It makes my stomach queasy. But actually, it’s not because of the thought of food. It’s because of the memory of what he says next.

‘Have you heard of any other prominent young runners coming up in the circuit?’ he asks, his tone light. Nonchalant. ‘I’m going to hold one of my special Boones training camps again. I don’t want another year to go by without an Ampersand race win.’

It’s never been enough for him that I win other races – the Yorkshire 100 is my target and he knows it – not an Ampersand race. But he’s obsessed with them. He wants to see a woman finish one – maybe even win one.

‘There is someone,’ I say. ‘She ran with me for a time at UTMB. I don’t think she has a coach, but she’s got a lot of talent and grit.

She was telling me about the backyard races she designed for herself.

She would’ve easily made the podium but she bonked a few miles out.

Get her nutrition sorted and she’ll be flying. ’

‘What’s her name? I’ll reach out.’

‘Yasmin El Mehdi. I think you’ll like her spirit.’

How right I was. And how angry I am that I was the one to lead that bright, beautiful spirit into the lair of an abuser.

I recruited her. It was because of me.

I think back to what Mariam said. You couldn’t have known .

Couldn’t I? There had been shades of inappropriate behaviour with me – orange flags, not bright red.

The odd touch. A brush of the hand. Lingering looks.

But he’d never made a move, never done anything I could really call out or question.

Even after Pete and I broke up, he kept a professional distance.

But he obviously hadn’t from others. What made me different?

I know now. He needed me. He needed someone the girls would trust to vouch for him. My success was what had sheltered me in this instance.

I’d put Yasmin – and who knows how many others – into Glenn’s path.

My body finally quits moving and I drop my hands to my knees, retching into the sand. A drip of saliva oozes from my lips and I spit it out. I close my eyes, pressing my fingers into my eye sockets.

I have to continue. I have to.

I open my eyes again and jerk backwards.

Fuck. There’s a snake on the ground in front of me.

But this one isn’t camouflaged with the sand like the other.

It’s got slick black scales, like polished onyx, curled around like a letter S.

I stay stock-still, panic gripping me by the throat.

But then it does something I really don’t expect.

It rises up, neck flaring – a cobra. It opens its mouth, its long forked tongue flicking out at me. ‘Liar,’ it says.

‘No!’ I reply. I keep running, but the snake matches my pace, so much better adapted to the sand than I am. It seems to slip along the surface, skimming along it like a stone.

‘Murderer,’ it says.

I blink, shaking my head. ‘No, no,’ I repeat. ‘It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything.’

‘What about to me?’

When I look back, Yasmin has replaced the snake. Her eyes are bright. She’s in running gear, wearing a race number – number thirteen, just like me.

‘Not so lucky for us, huh?’ she says, sardonically. ‘Boones’s pick.’ She gestures at the number.

I look down at my belly. The number thirteen looks strange from here. Like a backwards letter B. B for Boones’s bitch.

‘I tried to help.’ I offer her my hand but the apparition flickers as soon as my fingers touch the space she’d been occupying, only for her to reappear on my other side.

‘It wasn’t enough, I know,’ I say.

She runs a few paces ahead of me so effortlessly. By contrast, my steps are heavy, as though my shoes are filled with weights. I try harder to keep up with her.

‘And then he died,’ she says – or I think she says, but I can’t quite get level with her to hear.

‘Then he died,’ I repeat.

‘What an asshole,’ she says. It’s so clear, so surprising, it makes me burst with laughter. Yasmin smiles.

I look down and check my heading. I’ve drifted. I get back on it.

‘You’re keeping me on track,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

She’s running beside me now, matching me. The wind lifts her hair, even though I don’t feel a breath of wind. Her skin shimmers; she’s not covered in dirt and grime like I am.

‘I am so, so sorry.’ The words fall out of me in a blubber. Tears stream down my cheeks. I keep repeating it – but to who? To the ghost? To the world? To myself?

‘You know the way,’ she says. She disappears then.

I spin round, searching for her. Willing her to come back.

The desert around me is still just a vast emptiness, my trainers leaving imprints in the sand.

I blink. Next to mine is a second set of impressions.

A different pattern. She had been there. She’d been running with me all along.

I catch a glimpse of something on the horizon. Or do I? Another mirage? It’s a peculiar dust cloud speeding towards me. Another storm – or the wake of a vehicle?

I need to keep moving forward. When I turn round, for the first time I see what’s in front of me: the jebel. Jebel Tilelli.

I don’t know how many miles passed while I was running next to Yasmin. How far she carried me.

My pace picks up. It’s a genuine boost. There’s not far to go now, and the main obstacle is in my sights.

Yet after a few steps, I feel certain I’m hallucinating again. I see what looks like a white-painted boulder in the middle of the otherwise muted colour palette of oranges and browns.

It’s only as I draw closer that I realize what I’m looking at.

It’s a body.