‘I have become addicted to exercise’
Bryony Gordon does a half-marathon – and reflects on how far she has come since starting
Lying on a bed with my legs resting on the shoulders of a tall, handsome man, I couldn’t help but wonder: is this the reason I decided to do the London Marathon? Sure, getting injured isn’t much fun, but I’m learning that it’s all par for the course when it comes to training to run 26.2 miles (the key bit, I am told, being the .2 – though I am pretty sure that for me the key bit will be the entire thing).
The last time I wrote a running update, I had done something to my right abductor, which meant not training for two weeks. Then I found myself in the Harley Street offices of the Centre for Health and Human Performance, a super-physio haven that looks after Olympic athletes, as well as all those crazy Comic Relief challenges (Eddie Izzard doing 27 marathons in 27 days, and Jo Brand walking from one side of the UK to the other). It struck me that if they didn’t sort me out, nobody could.
Hence my feet pressing down on the shoulders of a man I have only just met – Tim Roberts, a 6ft 5in Australian with twinkly eyes and a charming bedside manner. He is strength-testing me, to see just how weak I am and whether I am in a state to run. I have butterflies in my stomach – not because I really, really fancy him, but because I really, really want to get out on the streets again.
I am desperate to run. At night, I dream about pounding the pavements around the South Bank. The other morning, I was getting dressed in my bedroom when I heard the familiar sound of trainers slapping the ground, of someone jogging to the common, and it felt as though they were taunting me.
“I think you have a problem,” my husband said, when I told him in great detail about the route I had planned for my next long run, and how I could keep my strength up through thrice-weekly Pilates classes. “You have become addicted to exercise.”
But I didn’t have time to respond: I was too busy packing my gym kit for a session on the cross-trainer.
It’s true – I have become addicted to exercise. Like smoking, it took me a while on account of how disgusting I found it at first, but now I’ve got past that stage I am well and truly hooked. I am now at least two stone lighter than when I started this journey, and so much brighter. But most importantly, I feel strong for the first time in my life. There are muscles at the back of my thighs and in my arms. I am never out of breath. I think I look good, even if some less gentlemanly readers have felt the need to tell me that I look like an elephant. So I need Tim to pass me. I need him to glue me back together.
After the assessment, I sit nervously at his desk and await the verdict. I swear I can hear my heart pumping. “Right,” he says. The clock ticks on the wall. My breath seems to get shallow. “You are good to go.” I actually let out a little shriek of delight.
Two weeks later, I am standing on the start line of the Fitbit Semi de Paris, a half-marathon in the French capital that I have signed up to with a friend.
I hadn’t thought about the temptation that would be everywhere in the form of wine and cheese, but after the strength training I have done with Tim – gnarly side planks, excruciating calf raises while sitting against a wall, actual bridges, which I haven’t been able to do since I was 12 – I am not willing to throw it away over a piece of Camembert and a glass of the hotel’s finest merlot. Instead, we go to the Musée d’Orsay, stock up on protein in the form of steak tartare, and retire to bed at 8.30pm.
In the morning, it is blowing a gale and lashing with rain. Like almost all the 40,000 people doing this run, we start it sporting bin bags over our kit.
By mile six, I feel like I am flying. At 10, I have a headache because it is so cold. I put my hood up to try to ward off the biting wind, and in the process empty what feels like a bucketful of water over myself. At 11 miles, the furthest distance I have ever run in my life, I start to think I can’t do it. I walk for a bit. Then I pull myself together and sprint to the finish line, a slow but steady half-marathon in my back pocket and a feeling of smugness. By the end of the day, I have clocked up an impressive 44,000 steps.
Sure, the half took me two hours and 43 minutes. But who would have thought, five months ago, that I would manage to run 13 miles?
Now I just need to double that. In six weeks. Gulp.
‘At 11 miles, the furthest I have ever run in my life, I start to think I can’t do it’