The long haul

Bitterly cold cross-country races along the swollen banks of the River Ouse in mid-winter very nearly ruined my fledgling relationship with running.

But luckily, the memories of the pain, cold and mud did eventually fade, and 20 years after leaving school in York, I'm heading back to run its inaugural marathon in October.

It’s been a rather circuitous journey back to my running roots, though.

My running career may have begun rather inauspiciously in York, but for the past 13 years, working as a journalist, I've always packed my running shoes alongside my notepad and pens.

Running allows me to process my thoughts, gives context and order to my reporting and offers an escape when the complexities of a story become too raw. It also provides me with a unique view of the world around me and occasional access into the lives of those around me that I wouldn't have otherwise experienced.

I’ve run in more than 30 countries from Chile to Croatia, Peru to Portugal, Brazil to Bolivia, eking out long miles, snatching short respites from my work, being chased by children and dogs, and making friends with strangers who have offered me a window on the world.

I remember one occasion when I was greeted by a UN soldier in the Congo. He was leading his platoon on their morning exercise. By the look on his face, he was clearly wondering why a tall redheaded white woman would run by herself in the Congo.

It was a question I should probably have asked myself before I headed out the gate of the hotel, hurdled several lumps of lava and nearly ploughed head first into a man on gravity-defying wooden bike apparently carrying all his worldly belongings.

I was working in Goma, the Congolese city on the edge of Lake Kivu, training journalists on how to stay safe and for a moment I thought I should be taking more of my own advice.

But the draw of being able to lace up my running shoes, step out the door and explore a new world won me over — once again.

For the next few mornings, the soldier and I shared a daily exchange of pleasantries and for several minutes moving side by side, we were two strangers from opposite sides of the world enjoying easy companionship and a mutual respect brought about by running.

Little did I know that another shared passion for pounding footpaths would lead me on one of the most extraordinary journeys of my life. In Peru, I was lucky enough to find a fellow runner in the press officer for the Brazilian team when I covered the Copa America football tournament.

The friendship that developed saw me invited to interview the team's coach, which in turn led to me accompanying the national side to a peace match in Haiti. Although I was never able to run in Haiti, it is only through running that I came to visit this extraordinary country, returning as soon as I could to report from there at the end of 2004, and later after the earthquake in 2010.

Just as running had got under my skin, so too had Haiti, and in the days and weeks that followed my return from the devastated country, my running provided a time for me to mentally return to Haiti and deal with some of the terrible things I had witnessed there.

Sometimes cultural dictates mean that as much as I want to sling on my shoes and shorts, I can’t – and I have to opt for long trousers in gyms or no running at all. On occasions, I've run with a sarong in my hand to tie around me in the event I wanted to stop and visit somewhere I ought to be more covered.

In Jordan, I was confined to a treadmill in the rather surreal bright pink women's-only section of the gym. In Libya, a week after the death of Gaddafi, I could only watch in envy as a male colleague of mine set out for a run along the water, only to return some time later somewhat surprised that he'd stumbled upon a group of returning rebel soldiers.

Luckily, they were in a rather subdued mood after a night celebrating – evidenced by the number of spent bullet cases my colleague ran past on his rather speedy return to the hotel.

Fortunately there won’t be any of these hazards or obstacles in York this October. It's been a long time coming, and has involved a rather eventful journey, but as soon as I heard that York was hosting a marathon, I knew this was one location I just had to run in. And, yes, I'll probably have my notepad and pen with me too.

• Hannah is a journalist and media safety expert working as a director for the International News Safety Institute. She was brought up in Malton and went to school in York and, although she has since moved away, she will be running the York marathon in October and joining our other bloggers at yorkpress.co.uk/marathon/blogs/