This Sunday, almost 60,000 people will cross the start line of the London Marathon. I couldn\u2019t be more thrilled I\u2019m not one of them.<\/p>\n
While my own marathon era<\/a> was short-lived \u2013 just the one \u2013 I hold it accountable for ruining my running life overall. If only I\u2019d listened to advice and kept my output to enjoyable regular jogs and occasional half marathons, maybe I\u2019d still be pounding pavements almost 20 years on.<\/p>\n I look back on my running life<\/a> with more than a tear in my eye. For almost a decade, it shaped my days and my weeks and took me to places I could never have imagined, from getting up to run through the dawn in foreign cities to racing up and down Primrose Hill before work. My reward was an unrivalled perspective on the city and the office hours to come. I\u2019ve never found a better way to kick off a new day.<\/p>\n What went wrong? I admit that I didn\u2019t start marathon training in an entirely responsible way. I signed up in the new year of 2008, around three months before the marathon (in 2026, more than 1,000,000 people entered the ballot for the London race\u2026).<\/p>\n My first training mistake was to head out on a 12-mile run when I was out of practice. As a seasoned competitor in half marathons (13.1 miles), I knew I could complete this distance, but I hadn\u2019t put my trainers on in a few months and it proved too much for me. My left knee swelled up and I could hardly put any weight on it or straighten it.<\/p>\n Consultant orthopaedic knee surgeon Khalid Al-Dadah told me that knees are particularly susceptible to running injuries because they support so much weight. \u201cThe knee can take up to seven times your body weight during day-to-day activities, and this is amplified during running,\u201d he said. He explained that runners can develop \u201crunner\u2019s knee\u201d due to this overload on the joint, but that it\u2019s better to switch to another exercise, such as cycling, than to give up altogether, because a sedentary lifestyle would make our joints even weaker.<\/p>\n Despite my painful knee, I couldn\u2019t back out at that point. Instead, I found a trainer with a \u201crevolutionary\u201d approach to marathon running. Mike Weeks told me that if I focused on building upper-body strength instead of exhausting my legs with long runs<\/a>, I would improve my fitness and develop resilience without putting too much strain on my joints.<\/p>\n While the majority of marathon training plans seemed to advocate putting in heavy mileage for four to six months and loading up on carbs to use as energy during the race, I settled into three months of weight training and eating jelly, fat and protein under Weeks\u2019 unswervingly patient supervision.<\/p>\n He agreed to train me even though he thinks marathons are bad for our bodies. And he should know: in 2006, he got Jack Osbourne around the infamous Marathon des Sables in the name of making amusing telly. The race takes place across the Sahara Desert in North Africa and participants run seven marathons in seven days.<\/p>\n Weeks, who ran three marathons a week while he was training, said his muscle density dropped away. \u201cYou\u2019d have to put a gun to my head to make me run for more than a couple of hours now,\u201d he added. \u201cSo many people think running the marathon will make them healthy, and it\u2019s quite the opposite. Many people leave it to the last minute and then think: \u2018Sh**. I\u2019ve got to start cramming in.\u2019 Their body is just annihilated in the training. Running for an hour<\/a> every day puts your body under so much stress.\u201d<\/p>\n On Weeks\u2019 watch, I didn\u2019t cram in the running, but I did train most days. He was more interested in me improving my sleep than clocking up miles. This was in 2008, before our phone addictions and sleep obsession had really entered the culture. He encouraged me to black out my windows with bin liners. My neighbours never forgave me.<\/p>\n After a few weeks, my knee improved and I was able to add in some longer runs, though by the time of the marathon itself, 18 miles was my furthest training distance (eight miles short of the necessary 26).<\/p>\n I enjoyed the race <\/a>itself, though I may never get over my time of 35 seconds over the hoped-for four hours. When telling people, I like to point out that I had to queue for the loo three times.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, I know I\u2019ll never get another crack at beating my PB, because as soon as the race was over, my running life took a turn for the worse. I tapered off, as advised, and continued with some of the circuit training. It felt pretty cool to be able to do chin-ups. But every so often, I\u2019d end up bed-bound with an excruciatingly painful trapped nerve in my back. Painkillers didn\u2019t touch the sides. Wherever it flared up, I hobbled around, bent double, for a few days until the swelling eased. I know that a lot of people have experienced this kind of disc pain, and if you know, you really bloody know. Simple tasks like washing my hair or lifting a heavy pan were impossible.<\/p>\n The GP was a total b**tard and told me that he would never refer me to a specialist. Eventually, a physiotherapist sent me for an MRI. Coincidentally, I experienced a worse episode than usual a few days before the appointment, when the problem disc in my lower back popped out (official language: extruded). I couldn\u2019t move on one side and a really lovely A&E doctor told me that he wished he could do emergency surgery, but before I could win that privilege, I had to be unable to move both legs.<\/p>\n I had surgery to remove the screwed-up disc<\/a> a few weeks later. After a long and slow recovery, I\u2019ve never felt confident enough to run further than the bus stop since. Instead, I do yoga, a bit of pilates and amble around with the dog. I\u2019ve never taken to cycling as I prefer kit-free exercise over all that clobber.<\/p>\n