Journalist Bryony Gordon accidentally agreed to run a marathon. And it might be Kate Middleton’s fault. Bryony’s new book, Eat, Drink, Run: How I Got Fit Without Going Too Mad, charts her preparation for her first marathon and the training she says transformed her life for the better. Bryony joined Brenda Donohue on the line from London this afternoon on The Ray D’Arcy Show.
Bryony describes the book as “a book about running that’s not really about running”.
“It’s kind of about my journey from a 16-and-a-half stone woman who couldn’t run for a bus to a woman who, you know, has run two marathons…It’s more about kind of doing the thing you think you can’t.”
After writing a book focusing on mental health, Bryony was invited to an event organised by the mental health charity, Heads Together, which is supported by the British royal family. At the event, she met Kate Middleton and talked herself into a bigger commitment that she had anticipated. They had been discussing the London Marathon, as Heads Together was the official charity partner. Bryony asked Kate if she would run the marathon herself. Mentioning security concerns, Kate said that it was unlikely.
“And I went, ‘Oh come on, if I can do a marathon, anyone can’. And I sort of thought, I don’t know why I just said that. Because I’ve never done a marathon and I can’t even run.”
Bryony may not have been a confident runner at the time but she set her mind to improving. It involved changing her whole mindset about what roles people can inhabit. Part of the challenge of training was overcoming what she thought her limitations were, Bryony says.
“There is this sort of culture where we do put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Because of that, I got kind of sick of it and I thought, actually, I’m going to think about the things I can do with my body.”
Bryony had heard that regular exercise could help regulate mental health. She joked to Brenda that she didn’t want to believe this was true.
“I loved a drink and a fag and I was not an exerciser, really. I never thought I could do it...For me, exercise was something strange people did. I’d sort of run after a bus but that was about it...I wanted to be the first person to kind of prove that a certain amount of a combination of alcohol and drugs was going to make things better. But of course, that just made my mental illness worse.”
It’s not about getting everyone to run marathons, Bryony says, it’s about trying something you think you can’t do.
“I’m trying to say, ‘Well, what is the worst that might happen?’. Try it. Your bed’s still going to be there. The couch is still going to be there. The takeaway menu is still going to be there…it’s about just trying it. Because you might actually like it.“
Listen back to the full interview on The Ray D’Arcy Show here.