Is It Me?

A personal experience of returning to a running club.

I did something last week that I haven’t done in over ten years. I went along to a running club, not as a coach, not as a leader, but simply as someone turning up to take part.

I was very nervous, but also excited; it’s been years since I’ve run with a group as a participant, not a leader, a coach or the “boss”. Just someone turning up to run a hard session for the pure joy of it. Something just for me.

I wanted to get that feeling back, you know the one? The one you only get when your effort is shared, that feeling of connection with others as you manage a gasping out-of-breath “well done” when you pass each other on another hill, or lap rep. When you’re at your absolute worst, the stripped back version of you with the sweat, the snot and the dribble. A moment in time, in a shared, safe space, where you’re free of professional hierarchical stereotypes, the only status is how much discomfort you’re willing to tolerate.

I’ve known this feeling before, back when I first started running and joined the local running club and I’ve built spaces where these feelings could exist. I’ve watched it happen, the moment when people realise they’re safe enough, neither watched or judged, to let go, to push, to grunt with exhaustion over those last 5 seconds of pushing to their limit. Then, the release, the peals of laughter as you realise the noise that left your body was a moment of total vulnerability, unfiltered, un-choreographed, and raw.

I wanted to be inside it again, to feel positive about where I am now, to heal and to remind myself that I am still a runner, even if things look different now.

On the morning of my first tentative step back into the world of an affiliated running club, I deliberately told my husband my intentions, mainly because I knew I’d try to talk myself out of it. He told me he was proud of me. He joked that I’d be back wearing a club vest before I knew it. He said I was fearless.

Fearless? I turned that word over in my head. Was I fearless or was I walking into something I’d previously understood all too well? Was I forgetting why I’d previously left that space behind. He’s always admired my determination to do hard things, put myself out there; I think his admiration comes from knowing he’s not good leaving his comfort zone.

But was there something else underneath it this time, a quiet knowing that this wouldn’t just be physically hard?

Obviously, I overthought everything and spent too much time planning what to wear, a t-shirt subtly highlighting my credibility? Paris Marathon? Too much? Yosemite Half? Just enough? But it had to be something that says I know what I’m doing.

I stood in front of the mirror and quietly asked myself if I still looked like a runner, this surprised me, it was unfamiliar as I’d spent years championing that if you run you’re a runner. Why was I now questioning my own legitimacy?

Had my body changed? Does it reflect the years and miles I’ve run? Would it be obvious that I did belong?

I’d emailed ahead to ask if there was anything I needed to know before I turned up. The simple answer was “No, just introduce yourself to the leader”. Click the app, turn up and assume the system works.

I got lost, of course I did. Driving round a rabbit warren of identical houses, sat nav insisting I “head southeast” while I looped another cul-de-sac. Eventually I landed in a badly lit car park, the kind that always feels slightly suspicious but, in running culture, usually isn’t.

I sat in the car longer than I needed to, here I was, 57 years old asking myself what I was doing?

I glanced around me, trying to see if there was a group of runners anywhere, where do they meet? What time should I get out of the car? Now? Five minutes? or ten minutes before the session? What if no one else was there, I’d feel stupid standing on my own. Where is everyone?

I’d parked deliberately in the corner, I thought just close enough to observe but far enough to leave quickly. Just in case.

I quickly realised that I’d parked next to the leader of the group, I recognised him from a bit of pre-stalking on the club app, phew. Relief.

I waited, tried not to make it obvious I was watching and then two minutes to seven, he got out of his car. This was my moment; I leapt out before I could stop myself:

“Hi, I’m Verity, this is my first time… are you, Dave?”

He laughed.
“Do I look like a Dave?”

I wasn’t sure how to read this odd response. I knew he was Dave, after all. Was it humour? a dismissal? or something in between? I mumbled something about stalking him, and something shifted immediately inside of me. Ah, the system hadn’t worked, I clearly hadn’t been expected.

“Dave” and I walked over to the group, of course, the one I hadn’t even noticed that had gathered in a corner, I eye rolled myself. I quickly mentioned my broken ankle to Dave, and that I was easing back into intervals. He nodded….and there’s nothing like a nod to signal disinterest.

I hovered slightly behind him, waiting to be brought into the group. Nothing happened. Conversations carried on around me, uninterrupted, as he made no move to introduce me to the group. As I stood there, on the outside of the circle looking in, my fight or flight response kicked in - was it too late to back out? How foolish would I look if I said I’d forgotten something from my car and then drove away?

No, I chastised myself, you’ve got this, you are FEARLESS, so I forced myself to stay. I stood alone, smiling in that automatic way you do when you’re trying your hardest to look like you belong. I was desperately hoping someone might catch my eye and say hello. Nobody did. I felt like an inconvenience to these regulars, all so familiar.

Another women arrived, I moved quickly as she walked to join the waiting group.

“Hi, this is my first time” She smiled. “Mine too!”. Another phew.

The warmup run started, and of course it was too fast. I ran with the other new girl, trying to hold a conversation, my composure, and the too fast “warm up” pace. I knew it was wrong for me; did I do what I’ve told countless others to do, “don’t go out too fast”. Not at all. At that moment in time, fitting in mattered more to me than even my ankle.

We moved to the drills, some of them didn’t feel great on my ankle, and again I carried on, ignoring my body, I didn’t care about the physical cost, the emotional cost of standing out, being a “know it all” was too high.

There was shouting, what? Sharp, corrective and public. Someone in the group was talking; they were being “told off” loudly and abrasively. The tone was familiar in way that made my stomach drop, I was no longer in the present, I was somewhere else, years ago reminded of condescending rhetorically toned questions, the same edge, “What do you think this is? A mother’s meeting?”

The session was explained to us, a hill session, one of my favourites. I couldn’t wait to get started as we moved to the bottom of the hill. “GO!”

I was last. My enthusiasm ebbing as I watched tanned legs and swingy, shiny ponytails, seemingly effortlessly, run up the hill and past me.

It’s ok, I told myself, you’re rehabbing, you need to take it cautiously. But no one else knows that, came my panicked reply.

I felt uncomfortable, it wasn’t the session, I’ve done harder, faster, and a lot worse. It was the feeling of being completely on the outside of something that I’d once known so well. I’d felt it before, years ago. But I hadn’t expected to feel like that again, considering all the things I had achieved in between.

Up the hill I went, pushing to the top, audibly out of breath which suddenly felt like something I had to apologise for. On the way down, my recovery felt exposed, and as visible as a neon sign not as fit, not as fast, not quite right.

I knew if I followed the crowd of not recovering on the downhills, I’d pay for it towards the end of the session, and I’d feel worse. And then something shifted again; from wanting to belong, I simply used the session for what it was, an opportunity to train.

Was this just how it was and how it would always be? Had I expected too much? Or am I no good in social situations?

Was it me?

I reasoned with myself, people are busy, too busy to chat, they’re thinking about what to cook for their tea, their meeting in the morning, their heads full, not unkind, just unavailable. They just turn up and run hard, that’s it, a volunteer-led club, not everything is designed to hold you.

As we walked to the cool down, someone did speak to me, but it was only because they’d mistaken me for someone else. I made a joke to ease his evident embarrassment. It didn’t land. When I retold the joke to my husband later, he outwardly groaned.

Before I left, the initial contact asked me how I got on, I defaulted to the classic runner response of explaining my performance through my ankle break. Did I shave a month off how long ago it was. Yes, yes, I did.

I walked to my car, thinking how easy this used to feel, not the running but the people. As soon as I was in the comforting darkness of my car, I burst into tears. Not because of the session but because I remembered with absolute clarity, exactly why I built something different.

And throughout the following week, I found myself questioning whether it was me, my social awkwardness, my expectations. Should I try again next week? Maybe, in time, people would get used to me, they had before, back when those spaces were the only ones available in the running world.

I was used to ignoring the spikes in my nervous system, the abrasive tone, the rhetorical questions that were never really questions at all. And most weeks I’d turn it back on myself, telling myself I was too sensitive, that I needed to toughen up, as I absorbed the narratives that clubs like this had no space for “a fat lass at the back” who didn’t bring home the trophies.

Back then I adapted, I kept showing up and I strived to be part of a group, because when you were finally accepted, it was amazing. Because, what was the alternative? That was just how it was, authority was protected as long as it came from the right person, and we all learnt to get on with it.

But that was over a decade ago, I had hoped times had changed, especially as England Athletics are introducing mandatory club standards this year, I keep talking about this because I believe EA are finally recognising the change within running. But even the most robust policies only go as far as the culture they sit within.

As the week wore on, and I kept turning over how I’d felt that night, I realised “that old familiar feeling” was impossible to ignore. I recognised it for what it was, it wasn’t me, or my mislanding jokes, and while I know this won’t be true of every club, there are still spaces where exclusion sits just beneath the surface.

As much as I tried to convince myself to go back, another night, another session, another group, it felt a bit like realising a flaky boyfriend “just isn’t that into you”; at some point, you stop trying to reinterpret the signs and accept what’s right in front of you.

Last time, I built something different. However, this time…… well, apparently my husband’s not that keen on me building another run club, which, to be fair, might be the most sensible boundary in all of this.