“I Was Really Scared of the Marathon. But Now I’m Excited.”
Top runner Emma Grace Hurley faces her fears by lining up for the Chicago Marathon on Sunday.
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Training Plans
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Afghan Women Runners Are Holding "Underground Runs" in Solidarity With Women Back Home
Runners Hosted "Underground Runs" Around the World for Afghan Women Banned From Public Life
Five years into Taliban rule, Afghan women runners abroad are organizing clandestine group runs to protest the ban on women's freedom in Afghanistan.
When Nadira Talayee first started running at the age of 14, it wasn’t on the track at school or in the local park. It was in a secure outside area under the cover of night—the only way a young woman in Kabul, Afghanistan, could safely exercise.
“I had to wake up at 4 a.m., and we couldn’t turn on the lights or play music in the car [on the way to the run] so as not to attract attention,” Talayee tells Outside Run. “But those mornings gave me a chance to see another part of my city and spend time with other girls in similar situations. As Afghan women, we’re strangers in our own cities and our own country.”
A recent graduate of Smith College in Massachusetts, where she was co-president of the running club, Talayee moved to the United States in 2019 to study. Since then, the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan has deteriorated dramatically.