A refuge in the dark: Afghan woman runs before sunrise for the women who can’t
A group of runners talk after running around Back Cove in Portland as part of global series of runs hosted by Free to Run marking five years of Taliban rule and the ongoing resistance of Afghan women. (Salomé Cloteaux/Staff Writer)
The dark was her refuge.
About once a month, before the sun woke up, Nadira Talayee secretly gathered with a group of other girls and women to go on a run in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Talayee had never run outside her home before she started running with Free to Run, an organization helping Afghan women become runners and advance gender equity. She was 14 years old when she started running. The Taliban hadn’t yet returned to power in Afghanistan, but it still wasn’t safe or socially accepted for women to be outside.
Although she hated running and she had to get up at 4 a.m. to do it, Talayee looked forward to the next run all month long.
A van came to pick up the girls from their homes. Those who lived further away had to wake up even earlier, at 2 or 3 a.m. They drove with the van’s lights turned off, so as to not attract attention. A vehicle full of girls in the dark would have been suspicious.
The driver told them to stay quiet, but sometimes they rebelled, playing their favorite songs and dancing in the car. When they arrived at a safe park across the city, they ran for 2 or 3 miles before the sun came up, on a concrete path surrounded by barbed wire fences.
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Early morning was the safest time. The night was dangerous, but right before sunrise, everyone was asleep, and for a brief moment, the girls felt free.
Talayee now lives in Portland, where she has the freedom to run anywhere, anytime.
But on Friday, she ran in the dark before the sunrise again. This time, she was joined by a group of Mainers who came to run for the women and girls in Afghanistan who don’t have the freedom to. The run is part of Free to Run’s campaign, Underground Runs, to raise funds and awareness during the month of August. This August is the fifth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power, and the series of runs taking place across the world sends a message that Afghan women deserve the rights that have been stripped from them, including the right to move and run.
At 4:18 a.m., a few cars began trickling into the parking lot near the Back Cove Trail in Portland. The sky was dark, illuminated only by a few street lamps and distant lights reflected in the water.
Talayee was nervous about leading this group run. She didn’t know if people would show up. But by 4:30 a.m., a group of about 25 people formed a semicircle around her. She asked them to reflect on the freedom and privileges they enjoy — privileges so simple and ordinary, like going for a run, that it’s easy to take them for granted.
“You just put on your shoes, put on your socks and you head out for a run,” she said. “But a lot of other people don’t have that freedom.”
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Wearing reflective shirts, running vests with rainbow lights and head lamps, the group took off toward the west, away from the sunrise. There was no one else on the usually busy trail.
One mile into the run, many watches beeped, almost in perfect unison. The sunlight was barely peeking above the horizon, a slither of orange light outlining the water’s edge.
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A few years ago, Talayee didn’t have the watch to log her exercise, running shoes to keep her feet comfortable, or even lights to guide her way.
In Afghanistan, she started running in her black, leather school shoes. Her mom wasn’t too happy about that. Some of her friends wore flip flops or winter boots during the runs.
Later, Free to Run gave them running gear like shoes and sports bras donated by people around the world. That’s how Talayee got her first pair of running shoes. They were purple.
The shoes were too tight, so she took out the insoles to make more room, and her mom cut a piece of a carpet in the shape of the shoe to put inside instead.
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At 4:50 a.m., the Back Cove was quiet except for the sound of running shoes on the stone dust trail and a few runners chatting with each other. The dark blue sky melted into warm orange where Portland’s skyline met the water.
“When you see a group of women like this running together for women who can’t, it’s powerful,” Robin Henry-Pearl told the women running alongside her. “When you put energy like this into the world, it multiplies.”
By the time the runners crossed Tukey’s Bridge, a thin, wispy layer of yellow light accentuated the sky, and it was finally light enough to see the trail more clearly. Some of the runners live in Portland, but others woke up around 3 a.m. in other towns to drive to the city for the run.
They heard about the run on social media or through their friends. Sophie Sandberg, a Free to Run campaign manager, said this was intentional. Information about the Underground Runs were shared by word of mouth, not publicly advertised, to echo the reality of the Afghan women who must run in secret for their safety.
Friday was the first time Talayee led a group run for Free to Run. She had lost touch with the organization after she moved to the United States in 2019. She had gotten a scholarship for a school in Pennsylvania, and she started her sophomore year there. Talayee ran throughout high school, and later when she attended Smith College in Massachusetts, she started a run club there.
In 2023, she got in touch with a Free to Run ambassador, who was doing a 12-hour ultramarathon. Talayee ended up running the ultramarathon with her.
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Talayee became an ambassador for the organization in 2024, raising funds and awareness about the women in Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq and other countries who cannot run. Talayee graduated from college in May, and now works as an accountant in Portland.
“Reconnecting with Free to Run, it’s almost connecting back to a part of me that I’ve forgotten about,” Talayee said.
Runner Sophia Paslaski is a workers compensation attorney working primarily with Afghan-American clients who suffer from PTSD from working as interpreters in Afghanistan during the war. She thought about those women during the run, and she felt a connection to them.
Running is a radical feminist act, Paslaski said. An act of solidarity for the women who can’t run.
Since the Taliban captured the city of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, almost 5 years ago exactly, those women have been stripped of the little rights they had. Barred from secondary education, erased from public life, Afghan women are facing increasing restrictions on their freedom and mobility.
It’s harder to find people to lead and join the running programs, Talayee said, so Free to Run is operating an indoor yoga-based psychosomatic program named Omid, which means hope. Women are limited to doing clandestine yoga or running indoors with covered faces, she said.
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Running might seem an ordinary activity, but to the millions who can’t run, it represents the freedom they’ve lost and the rights they’re fighting for.
The first time she ran in the U.S., Talayee looked at the maintained trails and the mowed grass on her high school’s soccer field. A whole open field for her to run.
“There’s no one here that can stop me from running,” she thought. “I have no end.”
There was no one to tell her what to wear, either. She remembers when she wore shorts for the first time. She felt so excited but so exposed at the same time.
Women are taught to be afraid of the dark, and rightfully so, Talayee said. But for her, it was the safest time, the only time she could run without others seeing her.
Sometimes, even after moving to the United States, she still runs in the early mornings or late at night.
She is no longer hiding, though. She feels safe in the dark.
It’s her refuge.
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Tagged: afghanistan, back cove, running, women's rights
Salomé Cloteaux is a community reporter covering Scarborough and Westbrook. She was born in France but lived in Indiana for most of her life before moving to Portland in November 2025. Salomé has a degree. More by Salomé Cloteaux
