On Running and finding our pacers
“They are strong, vibrant, powerful, loving, hilarious, alive, beautiful women. We all have very different personalities and different life trajectories yet we all seem to compliment each other”
I love running.
I love propelling my body forward without the aid of anything but my limbs and my lungs. I love the solitary, meditative nature of it. I love having nothing in my hands, just my running shoes on my feet and great music in my ears - the right playlist is key to the running experience, the speed of songs being most important. I’m all for the steady build - too fast too early on and you’ve spent your energy, too slow and you don’t create the right momentum.
I love runners’ bodies - lean and sinewy, designed for endurance not for strength. I don’t like treadmills, I prefer to run outside. I don’t run laps, I find running in circles really boring. I run to see new things - maybe it’s because of the creative personality, I get bored easily! I take my running shoes wherever I go - one of my favourite things is running in a new country, discovering it on foot.
I’m not fast, I’m not that fussed about speed, in fact I’d say I run, yes for the exercise, but primarily to relax - running is where I do a lot of problem solving. I don’t have all the fancy running gear, the shoes, the clothing, the apps, the gadgets - I wear a lot of old worn out logo-ed, holey t-shirts and my shoes are purely functional- grey, long (I have long toes and I found a pair of men’s running shoes that are the most comfortable) and clunky, I look like a mix of 80’s John McEnroe with an early 90s edge! I love running so much, I even did a music video with me running through the streets of Johannesburg, South Africa.
I also love a good running, and more specifically, endurance sports documentary. There’s nothing like watching someone pushing their body to the limit, overcoming hurdles to achieve their goal. I love surf documentaries, especially big waves riders; free climbing (watching someone climb a flat mountain face without a harness and a 100 feet drop to the earth below is as riveting as it is terrifying); mountain climbing (a very close friend of mine climbed Everest, you can listen to his story on the podcast); cold water swimming and ultra marathon runners, I love it all. I have also sufficiently [over]used the word ‘love’.
In each instance, it’s the mind that seems to be more important than the body. When your body is aching and exhausted, when those closest to you warn you of the risks of your choices, urging you to quit but you just keep going, it fascinates me. By now I think you’ve noticed the not-so-subtle creative arts/running metaphor forming!
But, I actually want to talk to you about pacers. In 2019, Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge attempted to run a marathon in under 2 hours. Elegant, humble, quiet and ridiculously fast, on 12th October 2019 in Vienna, Austria, Kipchoge ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) in 1:59:40.2. To give you some context, Kipchoge was running each kilometre at under 2.50 minutes. Put another way, I read an article where someone broke it down as ‘the equivalent of running 100m sprints in just over 17 seconds – 422 times in a row’. It’s extremely fast!
“In each instance, it’s the mind that seems to be more important than the body. When your body is aching and exhausted, when those closest to you warn you of the risks of your choices, urging you to quit but you just keep going, it fascinates me.”
I’ve watched the documentary a number of times now - smiling, carefree, in his element, Kipchoge doesn’t even look like he’s broken a sweat! And watching the documentary I learned something new, Eliud ran with a team of pacers. 41 world class athletes, running in 5 teams of 7 - they needed so many because no one could keep Kipchoge’s sustained pace for that long! Their role was not only to keep up Eliud’s morale but they ran in a formation to keep the wind resistance out of Kipchoge’s performance so he could run unhindered. Watching each pacing team swap in and out of position is like watching (exceedingly fast) choreography. And in the final kilometre when Eliud motions them out of the way as we watch him make history, they run behind him cheering him on with the crowd doing likewise, it is so moving, it brings tears to my eyes every time.
So, in keeping with the heavy-handed metaphors, who are your pacers? Who are the people who run alongside you, cheering you on? They move in and out of your life, for different periods of your life and with different skill sets but they are there to help get you to your destination. Being around you they get to practice their skill set and learn new things from the team they’re running with. And what about you, who do you keep pace for?
“But the sorrow gave way to a level of closeness, a true sisterhood that has become one of the most fulfilling relationships in my life.”
In my previous post I told you about one group of pacers called the MIH crew, but today I want to tell you about a smaller, closer group of friends who are pacers in my life. We are a group of 4 sister-friends: an artist and kids’ fashion stylist; a curator and director of an arts organisation; a trauma surgeon who’s currently at Harvard university doing world-changing things; and yours truly. We became close through sorrow, the death of a friend. But the sorrow gave way to a level of closeness, a true sisterhood that has become one of the most fulfilling relationships in my life. We’ve walked through marriage, children being born (we’re godparents to the stylist’s 2 children) Phd’s, career changes, relationship ups, downs and breakups, the death of loved ones, promotions, and all the colourful spectrum that life has to bring.
These women are my pacers. If you want people who will lovingly tell you the truth not because they’re cruel, but because they know how brilliant you can be, then these are the women to have in your life. They are strong, vibrant, powerful, loving, hilarious, alive, beautiful women. We all have very different personalities and different life trajectories yet we all seem to compliment each other. We have catch ups once a month where we not only talk about what’s going on in our lives, we keep each other accountable. What’s going on in your life? What plans do you have for this year and what are you doing to implement them? How are you feeling, what’s feeling hard or painful or challenging right now? They provide comfort and support but they also provide counsel. For us, our career’s aren’t just our jobs, they are an extension of who we are as people and the kind of world we want to play a part in building.
Our friendship isn’t functional or transactional - we don’t meet up to have business strategy meetings - it is as it’s core deeply relational. In all our years of friendship - coming on to 9 years - I’ve never felt jealousy between us, and that’s not to say we don’t have our own personal challenges at times, but there’s always this sense of personal accountability and that everyone in the space only wants the other person to win.
It’s true, I could do life without them, but why would I want to? They are a safe place - I feel I can be my most vulnerable self yet never feel judged and they somehow always manage to pull me up higher.
So, who are you pacers, tell me about them? Perhaps you’re looking for these kind of relationships in your life and wondering how to find them, we can talk about that too.