In an extract from her new memoir In Her Nature, Rachel Hewitt describes how running helped her process the loss of four members of her family as well as estrangement from her mother
In April 2018, I visit a running shop to buy a new pair of shoes. The store’s three walls are covered in shelves displaying brightly coloured trainers – road-running trainers; narrow, fell-running shoes; ultra-running shoes with thick, mattressed soles; plimsolls with spikes. There are shoes for pretty much every distance and every type of ground cover. But they are almost all for men. The shop has only four types of running shoe made specifically for women.
I ask the shop assistant why they stock so few shoes for women.
