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TEXT A: PROSE

2

In this passage, the writer describes outrunning the blues in the dark.

Vampire Running

One evening in early June, when I got grumpy at my husband for something that was entirely my fault, I realised I had become a woman who shouts. A lot. I didn’t want to be a woman who shouts, especially for no reason.

Restless and ashamed of my outburst, I dug through the wardrobe for a polyprop and running shoes. It had been months since I’d dragged myself around Wellington’s waterfront 5 but I needed to move, to propel myself as far away from my poor husband—and my anger—

as possible.

That first night I only made it as far as Point Jerningham, a 6 km round trip. My thighs ached and my lungs felt as though they were on fire. I stopped a couple of times. At one point, I was overtaken by a bloke walking his elderly greyhound. 10

Running into a headwind and / or horizontal rain in the pitch black is as miserable as you’d imagine it to be. Some nights I could barely feel my toes and because I couldn’t bring myself

to wear a head lamp, it wasn’t always easy navigating the surprisingly poorly lit suburban streets. I constantly complained, but I ran anyway, finding something strangely comforting about the anonymity of darkness, of having the footpath largely to myself. 15

A friend referred to it as vampire running, my preference for exercising after 8 p. m. I didn’t know how I felt about anything else but I liked the feeling of being outside when so many others weren’t, as though following a dark ribbon of asphalt made me a little bit stauncher than I actually am.

By the time winter had rolled up her sleeves, I was having a more meaningful relationship 20 with my running shoes than with nearly everyone in my address book. Two or three nights

a week, and sometimes on the weekend, I’d peel myself off a warm couch and head out, plodding down to Oriental Bay and winding along the waterfront to Balaena Bay and back.

I began to recognise the same people: the older chap with the bad varicose veins who grunted with nearly every step; the overweight couple with matching jackets who ran almost as slowly 25 as I did, and the homeless guy near Freyberg Pool who would regularly bark commands at runners to pick up the pace (he once hissed at me “Real runners don’t stop” when a bad stitch slowed my speed).

My relationship with running is a complex thing; as a child I was a competitive sprinter and

it took me a long time to slow down, to convince my body not to run 100 m as fast as it could. 30

These days, I’m more of a fair-weather runner, but I do miss those night-time jaunts along the waterfront. Thankfully, my life no longer has any unexplained sadness in the middle of it, but there’s something so seductive about vampire running that this winter I’ll be heading out again into the dark and cold, regardless.