I’ve always loved running. The thrill of being able to put on your trainers, get out the door and just put one foot in front of the other. No faff. No bike to maintain. No gym membership to pay for and never use. Just you, your trainers and the open road.

This love for running has led me to joining a new club in North London. As is often the case when you join a running club, you go through the usual routine:

“What’s your 5k PB?”  “18:47”

“Are you doing London this year?” “Yes”

“Are you doing the Cross Country this weekend?” “Cross Country? I’ve never done Cross Country. Maybe I should try it?”

Cross Country is the core of every elite long distance runner in history. Mo? Yeah, he did Cross Country. Paula Radcliffe? Where do you think she got her strength, her grit, her determination from? The muddy fields of rural England, of course.

My chat with my fellow club runner continued:

“It’s the Southerns this weekend” “Oh yeah, what’s the distance?”

“Well for me it’s 15km. For you, it’s 8km” “Huh?!”

Let me clarify, I was talking to a male runner. Senior Men run 15km and Senior Women run 8km. 7km less? Why? Are we too weak? Not fast enough? Unable to do the distance?

Of course we’re not. In every other corner of running, from Parkrun, to a local 10km, to the World Marathon Majors us women run the exact same distance as the men. We line up next to the men. We compete with the men.

In some cases, we actually beat the men. Think Alissa St Laurent finishing a full 90 minutes ahead of the first male finisher in the Canadian Trail Ultramarathon in 2015, or Courtney Dauwalter crushing the competition at the Moab 240 mile race in Utah by a whopping 10 hours, or even a woman at my local Parkrun who won it outright by 40s. The list is endless.

One of the joys of running is feeling like you are on a level playing field with your fellow athletes. Men, women, young, old. We’re all in the same race, doing the same distance, going through the same experience.

In 2016, the Scottish Cross Country Association made the decision to equalise distances across genders for the Scottish Nationals. Did fewer women turn up? Did fewer finish? Could they handle those extra kms?

In 2015-16 before the distance change, 265 finished. In 2016-17, 269 completed it. And this February, 271 female runners got over that muddy finish line. Unsurprisingly, the longer distance made no difference to the number of women wanting to compete, or being able to finish.

In the world of running, if you haven’t done Cross Country, you’re not a ‘real runner’. I can run a 5k in less than 20 minutes, a 10k in less than 40 and a half in sub 1hr 30. And until the England Cross Country Association equalise distances for men and women, I will proudly state that I’m not a ‘real runner’. Or I’ll move to Scotland…

Annabel Litchfield (@VamosRunning)