Book review: Running like a girl: notes on learning to run

Running Like a Girl: Notes on Learning to Run

Alexandra Heminsley

Alexandra Heminsley’s book is gut-wrenchingly honest. Sometimes the gut-wrenching is from laughter – do not read and consume your morning coffee at the same time, or you’ll end up snorting it out your nose – and sometimes from empathy.

In a sport that has traditionally been male dominated, Heminsley offers a uniquely female perspective lacking in most running literature. Let’s face it, there are certain things that male runners are simply never going to understand – the trials of finding the right sports bra fit, what to do with all that swishing hair, the convoluted relationship with the colour pink. Heminsley navigates it all with hilarious honesty: “I have been that woman typing ‘What happens when you run with big boobs?’ into the search bar in the dead of night…”

Heminsley is not an expert in the field of running and she doesn’t try to be. Her book takes the tone of a friend offering an emotional experience rather than a professional outlining the science of running. If infor- mative running books were this funny though, there might be an outbreak of improved form and nutrition in the running community.

Complete newbies and seasoned runners alike can appreciate the highs and lows of discovering running. Alexandra’s notes in her running log are universally relatable: “Well, it started fine but then I got INCREDIBLY TIRED” and “This run was so awful that I don’t want to record it.” Her observation of the marathon experience is spot on: “I imagined that I had joined a cult…. We were marching to some sort of promised land, searching for answers from a leader we had yet to meet.”

Running Like a Girl should be on every female runner’s reading list. At the very least it will make you want to pull on your running shoes, even if it is after “three slices of toast with honey, for ‘energy’” and spending an hour and a half “faffing around on iTunes.” We’ve all been there, right?