Training for a marathon a decade after my last one taught me a crucial lesson

I may be older, softer and more perpetually exhausted, but I now know that I’m mentally stronger than twenty-something Helen ever was

“Now, I don’t want to put you off darling… but you did say that if you ever mentioned running a marathon again, I was to tell you not to do it?”

My mum says this with an air of anxious trepidation that’s somewhat dampened by defeatism. She already knows it’s too late; she already knows I’m a goner.

Nearly 10 years ago, after I’d completed my second marathon in Rome, I told her in no uncertain terms that I was never, ever, ever going to do one again. I may even have been crying at the time – not, I hasten to add, tears of joy – after a punishing race during which it pissed it down the entire time (proving that even the Eternal City loses its charm when one is forced to damply trudge the streets for five hours under a sky the colour of concrete).

Hardly any supporters turned out; parts of the route weren’t properly cordoned off, meaning that Italians kept nonchalantly crossing the street, cigarette in hand, forcing runners to stop and wait. But the main issue was that my training hadn’t gone to plan.

Used to running with friends but having to prep for Rome solo, I’d struggled to get through the long runs needed to stand me in good stead. An injury the month before had set me back further, and I’d turned up on race day feeling physically – but, more crucially, mentally – underprepared. I had no real faith that I could do it.

Well, do it I did, but the whole affair was so traumatising that I upheld my promise – “never again!” – until this year, a full decade later. Only one offer could ever have tempted me to break my ironclad pact: a place in the London Marathon.

London is special, you see. It’s the one everyone wants to do, the one with the unbeatable atmosphere, so popular that it’s nigh-on impossible to get into. Some people enter the ballot for years without getting selected. So when a place all but fell into my lap, a mere 10 weeks before the event, I ignored the screaming voice in my head shouting at me to “just say no” and accepted.

My mother wasn’t the only person who voiced concerns. After all, 10 weeks isn’t long; when I Googled “10 week marathon training plans”, all the results said something along the lines of: “You should allow more than 10 weeks to train for a marathon”. Super helpful.

And yet, while part of me knew it was madness, another part knew I had something to prove. Yes, my body wasn’t as young, fit, and full of a Duracell bunny-like energy as it had been at 25. But my mind – surely that, in the intervening decade, had become more resilient?

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There is something inherently miraculous about training for a marathon. Perhaps not for the people who knock one out every year, but for the rest of us “normals” – those for whom it is a once, twice, thrice in a lifetime achievement – it is a source of purest magic.

The distance is so far, so unfathomable, that the very idea seems impossible. When you start training, it feels like an exercise in blind faith: against all your instincts, you have to trust that, if you just keep going a little further each time, you will in a matter of months be able to run 26.2 miles.

You have to turn down the volume on the constant naysayer in your brain bleating that of course you’ll never make it, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. There’s a reason people talk about it being the ultimate psychological challenge.

As the miles of the big run clock up each week, you almost feel as though you’re watching yourself achieve it from afar. Surely that’s not me, running for three hours?, you think in surprise. Surely I could never do that? To me, it never stops being miraculous.

This time, I was determined to train alone, to show myself that I didn’t need the crutch of a running buddy to keep going. A relative newcomer to a seaside town with a beautifully long coastal path, I ran the same training route, week in, week out.

Each Saturday, I set off along the beach, headphones on, and listened to the same playlist. I watched as the sea changed depending on the weather, from calmly twinkling periwinkle to angrily churning slate. I thought about how much I loved finally living by the sea, and about how good the air in my lungs and the blood pumping around my veins felt. How good it felt just to be alive.

Physically, it quickly became apparent that I was no longer 25 – my knees got sore and my joints creaked and my back ached. Some days, the wind whipped directly into my face all the way, and I would scream “f*** you!” into the void. Others, the rain pounded and soaked me to the skin five minutes after I got out the door. Things chafed. Toenails turned black. When my legs got tired, I would forget to pick up my feet and trip over, skinning my hands and knees like a small child. But I kept putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again, no matter what.

Stop!, screamed the naysayer in my brain. No, I calmly replied.

The big challenge is still to come. Race day is on Sunday 23 April. As I write this, I don’t know if I’ll finish it – even with all the training, nothing can ever really, truly convince me it’s possible, other than running the damn thing. My stomach is filled with a million butterflies when I think about the final push.

But I do know this: I may be older, softer and more perpetually exhausted, but I now know that I’m mentally stronger than twenty-something Helen ever was. Culture may still prize youth beyond all else, but when it comes to marathon training, give me age before beauty any day.