Bryony Gordon 'I finally have a body and mind I'm proud of'
Bryony Gordon goes through the emotions – and strange practicalities – of getting to the start line of her first London Marathon
Even marathon runners had to look good, I had decided, and so the day before I had turned up at my local salon and asked them to braid my hair. That meant I wouldn’t spend the whole race being annoyed with it. No matter that I looked like a budget version of Bo Derek in 10
– when I walked out of that salon I certainly felt the part, so much so that I went straight back in and asked them to paint my nails in Heads Together blue. If I was going to do this, I was going to do this properly.
I laid out my clothes and looked at my feet. After all this training, they weren’t pretty. In fact, they were kind of hideous. Great thick calloused layers of skin had built up around them – I noticed the beginnings of a bunion on one toe. Flecks of nail polish that I hadn’t bothered to take off since Ibiza covered some of the toenails. But they had taken me this far. Now they just had to get me a tiny bit further.
“Goodbye, toenails,” I said, as I put on my socks. “Thank you for all you have done for me. It’s been fun.”
Then I put on my leggings and my Heads Together vest, upon which my name was printed in great big letters. “Mummy, why are you talking to your toenails?” asked Edie. “Because she’s mad,” said Harry. “And because she’s finally about to do the marathon.” “Are you really, Mummy, are you?”
After all this time, she finally looked excited. “Yes,” I said, a happy tear in my eye. “Yes, I think I actually am!”
My London Marathon trainer and pace runner, Tim, arrives just before 7am laden down with a huge backpack. “Everything you need for today, you put in here,” Tim says, shoving the cavernous sack towards me. I look at him in disbelief. “Yes, I’m going to run with this thing on my back so that you don’t have to worry about carrying stuff.” I start to cry.
“Wait until you’ve finished the race before you turn on the waterworks,” smiles Tim. Into the sack I put my tampons and some sanitary towels, just in case. I put a tub of Vaseline in too, and some paracetamol, not to mention the electrical cables for the portable phone charger, all of which join the loo roll Tim has bought along “in case we get caught short”. I say: “I just wanted to let you know that my commitment to today is such that I haven’t actually had an alcoholic drink or smoked a cigarette for six whole days.” I am in the cab to the start line with Tim. Tim shakes his head and laughs. “I’m really proud of you, Bryony. Now if you could just hold off while you’re actually running the marathon, that would be great.”
My belly is full of porridge and my heart is full of love. As the cab drops us off in Greenwich, and I see the crowds making their way towards their start lines, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. I can barely contain my excitement. I think I might actually burst. Helicopters fly overhead, increasing the buzz in the air.
Thousands of runners bustle down roads towards the start point. All these people, all of different shapes and sizes, all with the same goal: to run 26.2 miles. It doesn’t matter that some will do it quickly and some will do it slowly, or that some will do it dressed as rhinos. We all have the same thing in common, the same desire: to prove that anything is possible. To prove that you should never say you can’t. And yet I almost can’t fathom it, this huge thing that a year ago I didn’t even know I was going to do.
My mind flashes back to the Heads Together launch 11 months ago, to how much I have changed since then – both physically and mentally. I think of the times I couldn’t get out of bed, the times when I actually fantasised about being run over and not being able to use my legs – these strong, capable and muscly legs that today I feel so grateful for. I think of the Mental Health Mates, some of whom have created a giant banner to wave at me today, and I think of all the people who have written to me and sponsored me over the last few months. I think of all of these things, and I want to weep. Not yet, I tell myself, not yet. “Are you OK?” asks Tim, perhaps noticing the glassiness in my eyes. “Yeah,” I smile. “I’m OK. In fact, I think I’ve never been better.”
The marathon is so huge that there are various start lines for people to reflect their different speeds. There is also a special one for “celebrities”, and for reasons known only to the organisers, I have been told that this is where I need to be. Nervously, I find myself parading back and forth from the portable loo. It’s not that my bowels are being funny today – it’s just that I don’t want to set off with so much as a drop of urine in my bladder. Interestingly, I notice there is an ashtray in one of the loos, and wonder if I am hallucinating it, so desperate am I for a fag. “Do you think this means I can have a cigarette before we start?” “NO!” shouts Tim. He is such a spoilsport. Twenty minutes before start time, Ben from Heads Together appears. “You again!” I shout, throwing my arms around him. “Now look, I need to steal you away for a little bit.” “But the marathon is about to start,” I say, a look of panic spreading across my face. “There’s someone who wants to see you,” Ben announces firmly, and so it is that, with just 15 minutes to go before I am due to do the most mental thing of my
‘For the first time in almost 37 years, I have a body and mind I’m actually proud of ’
life, I find myself in a private tent, getting a hug from Prince Harry. “Well that was a little bit bigger than we’d expected it to be,” he says, once he has broken away from my iron grip. If I stop holding on to him, might I open my eyes and find it has all been a dream? I don’t want this to end, I don’t want this to end; I never, ever want this day to end. And though there have been many firsts over the last year, the one I am experiencing this morning, is, I realise, the biggest of all.
Because for the first time in almost 37 years, I have a body and a mind that I am actually proud of. It may be a body covered in cellulite, a body that wobbles when it moves, a body that is covered in scars from chafing. It may be a mind that is sometimes plagued by intrusive thoughts and feelings of self-loathing, a mind that was once addicted to drugs and throwing up food. But it is a mind that a Prince feels he can open up to, and a body that can run great distances. And that is enough. Even if I never achieve anything else in life, I realise that is enough. With just a few minutes to go before 10am, I find myself running to the start line. It is an extra half a kilometre my body could frankly do without today, but given that it came with a hug from Harry, I can’t really complain.
In fact, as I race back to Tim and we take our places next to the start line and the huge digital clock, I realise that my capacity for whingeing seems to have gone down as my aerobic capacity has gone up. Things I never thought I would write: aerobic capacity gone up, Prince Harry hugged me, I am on the start line of a marathon. Standing there, looking up at the beautiful blue sky, I am aware I have tears in my eyes – but they are happy tears. I cannot believe I am here. I cannot believe I am about to move for 26.2 miles, when it feels like just the other day I couldn’t get out of bed at all. The biggest lesson I have learnt in all of this: that sometimes – most of the time, actually – the best thing to do is just be yourself. To accept your body, and your mind, and never ever be ashamed of it. To be fearlessly, unapologetically you.
Bryony finished her first marathon in 5 hours 53 minutes and ran her second marathon (in her underwear) in April this year. In total, she has raised nearly £60,000 for Heads Together Eat, Drink, Run: How I Got Fit Without Going Too Mad by Bryony Gordon is published by the Headline Publishing Group (rrp £16.99). To order your copy for £14.99 plus p&p call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk