{"id":2844,"date":"2020-08-26T17:55:36","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T16:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.jomec.co.uk\/life360\/?p=2844"},"modified":"2021-01-24T20:04:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-24T20:04:16","slug":"womens-ultrarunning-the-translation-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/womens-ultrarunning-the-translation-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Ultrarunning: The Translation Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The global pandemic’s lockdown sparked a surge of women to the trails. In the wake of women’s movements across the world, female ultrarunners see opportunity not only for more women to enter the trails but for mounting momentum in female empowerment.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For three days, Allie Bailey woke up and she had a job to do. That job was to get from A to B by any means possible. She could do that. As she says, it was a very basic thing \u2013 except for the bit about running 100 miles across a frozen lake in the remote corner of northwest Mongolia, or the bit about avoiding frostbite, wolves, and possible lynx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy friend asked me, \u2018Do you want to go on an adventure? I said sure. He said, \u2018Great. It\u2019s 100 miles across a frozen lake.\u2019 And I just thought, huh\u2026\u201d Bailey pauses, her jet-black hair tangled in a bun and her tattoos dancing on her arms in the afternoon June sunlight. \u201cI don\u2019t think I can do that. But I\u2019ll give it a go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years later, Bailey reminisces the trip with that same humility and, with any plans of adventure outside her home near Glastonbury momentarily freezer-stored, a hint of nostalgia. The temperature dithered somewhere near -40 degrees. Sunlight was rare. Food came from a hole in the ice, provisions, or meat scavenged by locals aiding their trips. Bailey, though, won\u2019t tell you this first. She won\u2019t even mention she became the first woman to ever cross Lake Khovsgol by foot. Instead, she\u2019ll tell you that when she set off with eight men across 100 miles of one of the world\u2019s 17 ancient lakes ageing over two million years old, she came with little qualifications. She agreed partly for a laugh at herself, but mostly to escape a career in the music industry that felt more like a chronic outtake for her male co-workers. She was depressed, distracted and exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there trekking the Mongolian wilderness, Bailey was the only woman, and things were different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t judged for being a woman. I was just another person taking part in this epic adventure, and it was about me. It was all about me finding the power to go forward and do this thing,” she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I came back from Mongolia, I realised life was a lot simpler than I experienced. There wasn\u2019t all this other shit going on that affected me. That I wasn\u2019t good enough or my opinion was invalid. Or a worker told me I couldn\u2019t have a pay raise. Or it\u2019s okay for my boss to put his hand on my ass at a night club because I\u2019m lucky to have my job. None of that. I need to be treated as an equal, and I need to have respect for myself.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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