Economist article on women and running

[PygmyHippoBob]

I’m not a runner but I highly commend this article from the Economist 1843 magazine:
www.1843magazine.com/features/who-runs-the-world
The references to male violence and frankness about childbirth injuries made me curious enough to look up the writer on twitter, and I was pleased and unsurprised to see she has been retweeting WPUK.

DH gets it, actually. He's ridiculously tall, and knobheads seem to think that's also a reason to yell abuse (though not usually to throw things, admittedly).

Rachel has written two fabulous history books as well, one about the Ordnance Survey and one about the way we talk about our feelings and how it's changed over time. There's a lot of focus on how gendered it is and how damaging it can be to the way women are regarded. She's so insanely talented!

I love trail running. It's so freeing - but running on isolated trails while female is complicated. This article completely summed up how I feel about it. I try to run in groups as much as I can but then you're forced into socialising when you might prefer to just get some headspace.

I remember a thread on here recently that asked what how you would feel if you woke up as a man tomorrow and I said that I would go for a long trail run by myself and enjoy not feeling afraid...

Wow. That’s powerful.

Im very conscious of the fact that as a short, slow older female there are a number of longer races I cannot Enter as i Risk not making the cut off pace. It is mainly the smaller club events, the nice quirky courses. I have to do the bigger, more expensive mass participation stuff so I don'tRisk dropping off the back.

A slow older man will be fine, but a woman won’t. It’s quite offputting.

DH runs a beautiful route and I would do the odd run from time to time but last year three women were grabbed by a cyclist in a hoodie and he was never found so I run at the gym now.

What a fabulous article.
I loved the way she wrote so openly about her pelvic floor issues and how she deals with them whilst running.

Bumbling yes I appreciated that too, talking about it so matter-of-factly, and why not? I'm sure many women reading will relate to it. It happens. It's a massive issue that affects women's participation in running, we won't ever be able to help women with the issue of nobody ever talks about it.