Running Like a Girl by Alexandra Heminsley *

What disappointed me about Running Like a Girl by Alexandra Heminsley is that it never really tells the story it promises. I read it for the 2026 PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt number 39 “a book with a character who runs a marathon,” and it frames itself as a journey from non runner to runner, but Heminsley never feels like someone who truly was someone who didn’t like to run. She does like her sofa, she just needed the external motivation to leave it.

This book was not for me.

Running Like a Girl is structured in two halves. The first is biographical, following Heminsley’s journey into long distance running and marathon culture. The second is a practical section, offering advice on training, mindset, practical aspects of running, and charity fundraising. In theory, this split should work. In practice, neither half engaged me.

The biographical section is extremely repetitive in its structure. She trains for a marathon. She runs a marathon. She trains for another marathon. She runs another marathon. Occasionally this cycle is broken up by a description of a place or a fleeting attempt at atmosphere, but for the most part the prose is dry, functional, and emotionally flat. There is very little humour, warmth, or narrative texture. Large stretches feel closer to a manual than a memoir.

A bigger issue, however, is that Heminsley and I are fundamentally incompatible readers and subjects. Heminsley presents herself as someone who draws motivation from external validation, comparison, and constant connection to others. Her running journey begins not from an internal desire, but because her brother decides to run a marathon. Her father ran marathons. Men are the reference point again and again. Throughout the book she repeatedly frames running as a way to connect to men, to look good for men, or to be seen and affirmed by men.

Even during marathons, moments of crisis are often resolved through encountering someone else. Someone appears. Someone helps. Someone keeps her going. That reliance on external presence is presented as natural and positive. I found it deeply alienating. I am the opposite type of person. I travel alone. I do not need constant company to function. I do not pursue physical goals in order to be admired or validated. My own relationship to my body is about comfort, strength, and mobility, not about being looked at or approved of. Because of this gap, I never connected to Heminsley’s motivations, and the book never met me where I am.

The second half of the book pushed me further away. Early on, Heminsley leans into the familiar running mantra that pain is “in your head” and can be overridden with the right mindset. For readers with healthy bodies, that may be comforting. For readers with chronic pain, injuries, or structural issues, it is not just unhelpful, it is actively irritating. Pain is not abstract for me. It is physical, specific, and historically proven to be worth listening to. Being told to mentally override it is not inspirational.

The section on charity running also highlights a structural problem. In the memoir portion, fundraising is barely addressed. In the advice section, it suddenly becomes a major topic, described in detail and at length. The amount of planning, networking, and administration involved sounds like a second job. The book never convincingly explains why this labour is worth it, nor how people with limited time or energy are meant to absorb it into their lives.

Ultimately, Running Like a Girl reads like a book written for a very specific audience: women who want to run, who are physically able to run, who are motivated by community, comparison, and external validation, and who find endurance culture aspirational. I am not that reader. The writing did nothing to bridge that gap. There is no humour to soften the dryness, no self awareness about its narrow perspective, and no narrative spark to carry the repetition.

One star.