Running in her own right

Zoe Romano

I recently watched Zoe Romano`s Ted Talk, where she discussed running the Tour de France. On May 18, 2013 she began this run and with this became the first person to ever run the full 3,500 kilometers (2,200 mi). Through sponsorship, donations, and community engagement, Zoe used this run to raise funds for World Pediatric Project (WPP). Zoe raised just under $169 000.

Zoe averaged running thirty miles a day for ten weeks, and ran the last ninety miles in one stint, which is simply astounding. Although some of her talk was about the hardships and successes of this achievement, she touched on actually pitching her run to a publishing company; Zoe wanted to document her success story and make a memoir out of it. Unfortunately for me, because I simply love memoirs and movies that have to do with extreme activities, her book idea was turned down. Zoe explained that it had to do with her reason behind taking on such an extreme task of running over two thousand miles. In her own words, she took on this goal simply because she wanted to see if she could do it. She didn't just want to dream, she wanted to dream big and encourage other people do to the same.

 It seemed as though the publishing company needed more of a story. They needed her to take on such an overwhelmingly intense ambition essentially as a means to fix herself. They eluded that she should have not only been running for the sake of something, but perhaps running from something. As such other memoirs like Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, the other book about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail: A Girl in the Woods or even the Julie & Julia cooking memoir, all of these women were each attempting such impossible tasks as a way to cleanse their past and transform themselves into newer, better women. 

After completing two Half Marathons and fearfully signing up for my first Full Marathon in the fall, this Ted Talk was something that caught my interest. My last Half Marathon was an accomplishment I am very proud of.  For the first time I trained, quite diligently, on my own and I had learned that my hardest task was not so much the average thirteen kilometer runs, but I had to teach myself to actually rest on my rest days and opted out on running when I was injured, which was a very difficult thing to do. So, for me, running 13.1 miles and taking on the ambitious task of training for and then running 26.2 miles is an achievement in its own right. The fact that Zoe`s insight of running the Tour de France simply isn't enough of a success story really pisses me off. The desire to run that distance doesn't need to be about putting oneself back together, the reason doesn't have to come from the depths of a personal tragedy. 

Don`t get me wrong, I love those train wreck memoirs where a female writer hits rock bottom and eventually transitions into a strong, success woman in her own right. I love that women are opting to put themselves back together with extreme goals rather than fixing themselves with the prospect of a male companion. Elizabeth Gilbert is a writer I very much look up to and can relate to. Cheryl Strayed has helped me create my own desires of solo, long-term hiking, which I will do before I`m 30. However, the desire to achieve the unthinkable doesn't have to come from a serendipitous life event. 

Running doesn’t stem from hopes of transforming into a better me; I`m happy with who I am. That`s not why I run and I know that`s not why my girlfriends run. I run because it makes me happy. I run because it makes my ass look nice. I run because I love Hawkins Cheesees and when I complete a long run, I shamelessly eat two bags of them back to back.  I run because I`m addicted to that runner`s high and those endorphin's make me so damn content with my life. I run because it`s a part of me.

In all honesty, when I mentioned that I was going to run yet another half marathon in the summer, a strong and fearless woman in her own right, Celia, said that I should go all the way and run a full marathon. I should run it because I could do it. And I thought to myself, that shit yeah, I can do that. I will do it. And I`m running my full marathon on October 9<sup>th</sup> in Kelowna, BC. I`m running it not because I`m trying to fix myself or that I`m running from something. I`m running 42 kilometers with a goal of four hours because I want to see if I can do it.

Kindly,

A girl who just want to run in her own right.

They're working on a film about Zoe's Tour de France run. Check out the details here.