'You're not trying to do other people down, you're not trying to show off. You're doing what you love doing'
Why writer and broadcaster Liz Fraser is celebrating turning 50 by running her first marathon - and doesn't care what anyone says
Life begins at 40. Marathon running begins at 50.
At least that’s the case for writer, broadcaster and life-long runner, Liz Fraser.
With her 50th birthday approaching in October, Liz isn’t planning to slow down. Quite the opposite.
The author of best-selling biography, Coming Clean, which tells the story of Liz’s life as the partner of an alcoholic, is embarking on a fiftieth year where she aims to fiercely pursues ‘better’ in every part of her life - including running.
Part of that aim involves taking on her first marathon
With a sub-20 5k and sub-40 10k, goals she has achieved before but not for some time, also on her wish-list, 2024 is set to be a full-on year of running for Liz.
The journey, and whatever highs and lows occur along the way, will be recorded on her popular Instagram account, as well as a new Substack page dedicated to running.
A life with running:
Perhaps it was always likely Liz’s writing - which over the years has covered topics including parenting and travel - would eventually end up focusing on running. The sport has always been a part of her life, with her mother a particular influence.
“The runner out of my parents was my mum,” she said. “She comes from the Czech Republic and [when she was growing up] there was a lot of sport encouraged by the government [there].
“There were lots of fantastic athletics clubs and tennis courts and all sorts. She was a 400 metres hurdler in her university days.
“When we were very young and she then lived in the UK, she was coaching the colts, I think they were called, in the Oxford City Athletics Club.”
With her brother proving to be an accomplished sprinter, running constantly surrounded the young Liz, following her to Cambridge University where she joined the athletics club.
“But I was really bad,” she told the Running Tales Podcast. “And I don't say that in a self deprecating way, I was really rubbish. I think they just needed people.”
Also on Running Tales:
Liz, who struggled with Bulimia in her late teens and as a young woman, said over-training and under-eating blighted her performance at Cambridge.
It was years later, with two children having distracted her from the sport for a time, that she rediscovered running after signing up for a Race for Life event.
Her desire to run continued to grow, with 5km, 10km and half-marathon races becoming a regular part of her life.
A bottle of water and a Werther’s Original:
But the marathon had never really been on her radar - until now.
Towards the end of last year - taken by a new desire to embrace those 26.2 miles so many runners can’t help but flirt with - she completed the marathon distance for the first time on a training run.
She said: “I set out with a bottle of water and a Werther’s Original in my back pocket to see how I got on.
“But me being me, how I got on came down to how far as I could reasonably go and keep standing. So, I got to the half-marathon point and then thought, well, if I turn around now, that's a marathon.
“It was hilly, it was partly on the Isle of Skye, so it did have quite a lot of rises. And honestly, for the last five kilometres I was just absolutely broken.”
Liz said her new found hunger to embrace running goals has been boosted by finding like-minded people to encourage and inspire her.
“If you hang out with people who don't understand why you want to run further and faster and better, there’s a danger you start to listen to and believe them,” she said.
“There is a very strong voice among women that don't really understand a woman who genuinely loves pushing herself physically, and enjoying that and getting real pleasure from that.
“It's very often tainted with a kind of, oh, there's an issue there. She's over exercising, or it's coming from a place of a problem.
“And, as I've more recently been hanging out with people who do love doing that and who do love running, it's become so much easier for me to listen to the voice that says, yes, run faster.
“Yes, get out there in the rain and the cold. You're not trying to do other people down, you're not trying to show off. You're doing what you love doing, and that's very important.
“You have to be in the right room. Be in the room with people who understand you and who encourage you.”
Liz said her ultimate goal is to compare herself with the best version of who she can be, rather than with other people.
She said: “It is a lovely thing to run faster than other people, but at the end of the day, I compete against myself.
“Yeah, I can do better. If I can do better at anything - writing, parenting, being a friend, whatever it might be - then I want to be better. I make no apology for that at all.”
How running helped Liz during dark times - and why a run in bad weather is ‘better than sex’:
When she’s not running, Liz Fraser is best known as a writer and broadcaster, with articles, columns and TV appearances for the likes of The Guardian, Times, Telegraph and BBC to her name.
Her move to embrace the world of running has seen her launch a new blog on Substack, called The Running Diaries, to chart her endeavours.
That decision - along with the start of a travel writing Substack called The Venice Diaries - marks the end of a darker period of her life.
As well as her media exploits, Liz’s writing skills have seen her pen a number of books, the most successful of which is the best-selling Coming Clean. The biography tells the story of her life as the partner of an alcoholic, tracking her struggles with the lies, loneliness and fear she encountered.
It reveals how Liz was left heartbroken and mentally shattered, leading to long process of recovery. Her embrace of running is all part of closing that chapter and enjoying starting a new one, but she did admit to Running Tales that the sport has been an important way of coping with some of the pressure she has faced.
“My running has always been a source of positivity to me, whether that's improving my mental health or keeping me physically strong, which, in certain circumstances in life proves very useful,” she said.
“But really, I think it was the mental health benefit. And I'm sure there will be many, many of your running listeners who run for the mental health benefit as much as anything else.”
She said in some of the most difficult times of her life, running has brought out strong emotions in her: “It's this rhythm and you get into an almost a meditative state. I used to cry. I used to absolutely weep.
“On longer runs, I would have to stop running because your throat constricts. And when whatever it was was just released, I would cry and cry and cry, and I'd have to stop and really focus on opening the airwaves and getting the breathing going, and then off I'd go.
“Being very angry was also a very good, time to be running. I ran my fastest races always either very angry or very in love. So those are the two situations where I will run really fast.
“But certainly the running for me has been as much a part of my general health and well being as anything I can do for myself physically.”
Liz said running also has the power to create huge highs - even, or perhaps especially, when done in bad weather.
“I love running in bad weather,” she said. “When it's raining, windy and dark, it's an elation. It's like the best sex in the world.
“It’s like ‘that's nothing on this. This is absolute ecstasy’. All the endorphins all the adrenaline.
“And there's the having done it, isn't there? There's that feeling of, I did it, I bloody did it. And it was hard, but I did it.
“There's very little satisfaction for me in going out for a nice run on a beautiful, sunny, hot day. It doesn't really do it for me. It's nice, but I'd much rather run in the cold and the wind, and the rain.”
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