Summerwater

by Sarah Moss

The track turns and runs back under the trees, rivulets carrying soil and sand towards the loch, patterns of sediment like ripples on a beach. Not much point going down just to turn round and come up again, she could turn here. It’s not that she minds hills, not when they happen to be where she’s going, but she doesn’t go looking for them, doesn’t do training, intervals and hill reps, doesn’t join the running club, doesn’t race against anyone but herself. But you could probably run a marathon, Vicky tells her, Vicky who starts Couch to 5K every six months and gives up because she’s too busy or there’s weather or she doesn’t like being out in the dark. Of course Justine could run a marathon, she does the odd 25-miler just to show that she can and it’s not hard, you run and keep running until the end, but she doesn’t see why she should, just because some bloke in Ancient Greece was too excited to find a horse or a chariot or whatever people normally used when they wanted to go faster than they could walk. Women run marathons for sure and good luck to them, but it seems to her such a blokey thing, 26 point whatever miles and all that chatter about minutes and seconds and splits and Personal Bests, are we not measured and recorded and found wanting often enough already these days? Why not just run?