Sophie Raworth: "If I can do it, anybody can"
The BBC newsreader on running 23 marathons, coping with grief and why she's still chasing new challenges at 58.
Elisabeth Hoff
The BBC newsreader on running 23 marathons, coping with grief and why she's still chasing new challenges at 58.
In April, Sophie Raworth ran her 13th London Marathon (her 23rd marathon in total). But this time she had a new running buddy, her oldest daughter, 22-year-old medical student Ella.
"I’d trained really hard," says the BBC newsreader, 58. "Two years ago, I broke my ankle and couldn’t compete. Last year, I pulled out because my dad was dying. So this one was really important to me. I wasn’t sure if I’d be waiting for Ella or if she’d be faster than me."
Mother and daughter started together and ran over Tower Bridge side by side ("That was amazing"). But at mile 21, Ella began feeling tired. "I had a moment when I thought, 'Do I stay with her or do I push on?'" Sophie roars with laughter.
She left Ella behind? "I did! I did think, 'This is my daughter, can I leave her?' but she’d said, 'I’m running my own race, not yours', so I thought, 'Fair enough.' Then I thought, 'There aren’t many opportunities to beat one of my children.'"
In the end, Sophie finished in three hours 36 minutes. Ella came in just three minutes later. "She was fine about it." It was Sophie’s sixth-fastest marathon: her fastest is three hours 27 minutes in 2017 when she was 48. "I’d like to match that again. Anything’s possible!"
After all, Sophie only started running at 38. Twenty years on, she’s completed the world’s major seven marathons, plus ten ultramarathons including the Marathon des Sables, a 155-mile race across the Sahara Desert over six days. All these feats and more are recalled in her engaging memoir Running on Air, which has sprinted onto the Sunday Times bestseller list.
"If I can do it, anybody can," Sophie smiles. "I’ve had so many messages from non-runners who say that it’s really inspired them to give running a go."
Running on Air: From BBC Headlines to Life-Changing Finish Lines, by Sophie Raworth (Bloomsbury Sport, RRP £20)
It’s a scorching morning and we’re sitting near her south-west London home on a bench by the Thames (a river Sophie has run from source to sea). She’s in shorts and a flowery shirt and is accompanied by her five-year-old cavapoo Luna, a frequent running buddy. She’s already been to the gym, but – I’m relieved to hear – for once she won’t run the five miles to Broadcasting House to anchor the evening news – it’s too hot.
Sophie’s transformation from 'very unfit, slightly overweight' new mum to running 'obsessive' began in response to a career setback. Having given birth to her second daughter Georgia, now 20, she was on maternity leave from anchoring the Six O’Clock News. It was a job she loved, not least because she co-presented with her friend George Alagiah, but the BBC replaced her with Natasha Kaplinsky, shifting Sophie to the less prestigious lunchtime bulletin. "It wasn’t great," she says with characteristic understatement. "But I just had to get on with it."
‘Distraction from the humiliation’ came when she was invited to join the Great North Run half-marathon. Encouraged by her husband, property broker Richard Winter, 58, who she has been married to for 23 years, she started to jog beside the river where we’re sitting, often pushing her daughters in a double buggy.
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