Rachel Hewitt is an award-winning writer whose books meld history, biography, memoir and nature-writing. They include A Revolution of Feeling: The Decade That Forged the Modern Mind and Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey. She lives in Yorkshire, has three daughters and until recently was a lecturer in creative writing at Newcastle University.
Have you always been a runner?
I wasn’t a runner at all at school. I was absolutely dreadful at all forms of school sport, it just didn’t suit me. Then when I was about 25 I got a couple of days’ work at the London Marathon exhibition and I was inspired to start running after that – but not in a wise way. I wanted to go from nothing to running a marathon in about three months, which is just not possible. I wasn’t interested in stretching or doing any weight training or anything to do with looking after my body. So, of course I got injured and didn’t enjoy it. It was only after moving to Yorkshire and having my first daughter that I found a way of running differently – with less focus on time and competition and more on being outside and feeling good in my body.
