Runners

68 RUNNER’S WORLD JULY 2018animals become particularly excited when they seesomething streaking by, activating their predatoryinstincts to attack first and ask questions later. And itwasn’t just the obviously dangerous beasts like lionsand leopards, but also creatures like Cape Buffalo,or elephants who might gore me with their ivorytusks. So I resigned myself to staying in the vehicle,following the rules, suppressing my instinct to run.That desire isdeep, and rooted in what I do andhow I live. I’m on the road a lot, all over the world, and in some places –Tokyo, Barcelona – that almost feel like second homes. But many others- Antananarivo, Sana’a, Paramaribo – can feel lonely, alien. In the face ofso much that is deeply unfamiliar and often unsettling, I need a ritual toanchor me. I’ve found it in running. Whether I’m jogging through the hecticand charged central plaza of Port-au-Prince, pounding through a desertedjungle outside Zanzibar’s Stone Town, or cutting through the most denselypopulated part of Mumbai while the city is still asleep, running is whatmakes every place feel a little more like home. My motive isn’t purely internal, either. My job is to explore the worldand try to see it in a different way: find that hidden neighbourhood in northDublin still populated by travellers riding on horsebackthrough the cobblestone streets. Discover a six-seat streetstall in the back alleys of Bangkok that dishes out the mostextraordinary noodle soup. And in a time when every cityis not just mapped out, but photographed from left, right,centre, and above, I need a special way to see things onmy own and to reveal a place anew. Running gives me theideal way to move fast and slow around a new place andquickly crack its code, and it offers the perfect intersectionof internal and external: my want to be alone in my thoughts,grounded wherever I find myself, and to focus this inner,personal energy on the world around me and take it all inas deeply as possible. Desire isn’t right – it’s a need to run.Which is why, on each safari, I would ask – futile as I knewit would be: can I?At long last, someone said yes.Because Singita’s Grumeti reserve is private, I’mnot automatically prohibited from running here. Italso has an open section of plain that stretches forkilometres, bisected by a dirt path, and is covered inDaily runs would span90 minutes to twohours, and cover 12 to16 kays of savannahteeming with wildanimals: antelope andgazelles, zebras andwildebeest, jackalsand foxes – and lions.I SEE AND RUN THROUGH THE SAMEROAMING HERDS AGAIN AND AGAIN –IT FEELS AS IF THEY’RE LETTINGME GET CLOSER BEFORE THEY HURTLEAWAY INTO THE DISTANCE