When I read that Styles has just run the Berlin marathon, I felt an affinity with her as a fellow marathon wife, writes Maria Lally.
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She’s beautiful, talented, and (probably) gets woken up by her boyfriend Harry Styles bringing her a couple of tea in bed every morning, so it’s not often I feel sorry for the actress Zoe Kravitz. But when I read recently that Styles has just run the Berlin marathon, I felt an affinity with her as a fellow marathon wife (or in her case girlfriend).
Over the weekend, Harry joined 55,000 other runners at the Berlin Marathon under the alias of Sted Sarandos, completing the course in 2 hours 59 minutes and 13 seconds. This gives him the runners’ holy grail – and ultimate flex – of a ‘sub-three’ marathon finish time.
My husband Dan is also a ‘sub-three’ marathon runner, having run the London marathon several times in under three hours too, as well as a completely bonkers 100km endurance race that saw him run for an entire day and night, before collapsing in a ditch just past the finish line, where he hallucinated dolphins as his parents worked out how to carry him to the car. He then spent two days in bed, and I had to bring him his meals on a tray, while looking after our two young children, who were then aged six and nine.
Because behind every marathon runner, there’s often a long-suffering partner left at home for months on end, picking up the slack (and in my case, the childcare) while they stick to their rigorous (and rigid) training schedules. These often involve 5am runs before work, 18-mile practice ones at weekends while you take the kids to the park alone, zero drinking between January and April, cancelled social plans, and sweaty trainers cluttering up the hallway. While at the same time, talk turns to missing toenails, energy gels, and the ‘perfect splits’ (a running term to describe the pace you maintain throughout a run).
It’s not just marathons either. Over the years, countless friends have silently seethed as they watch their husbands head off on a Saturday morning for a three-hour long bike ride or run to train for a triathlon or Iron Man, while they’re at home (having worked all week and desperate to get to the gym) juggling kids and chores.
Little wonder that Sport England data found a ‘gender fitness gap’, with UK men exercising more than women. They also found that six in ten mothers admit to feeling guilty about taking time to exercise, and that while 77% want to be more active, most cite a lack of time as the reason why they’re not (like me, they’re probably busy clearing trainers out the hallway).
So, what should we do? After my husband’s second or third marathon I read an interview with former First Lady Michelle Obama, where she spoke about the early days of motherhood. ‘When I got married and had kids, that [exercise] fell by the wayside,’ she told the interviewer. ‘My “a-ha” moment came when our first daughter, Malia, was 4-months-old. My husband [Barack]’s exercise routine hadn’t changed a bit; he was still getting his workouts in, and I was getting irritated. Then I realised he was just prioritising it differently,” and decided to do the same for herself.’
She also spoke about her own mother who she said, ‘put us first, always, sometimes to the detriment of herself. She encouraged me not to do that. She’d say being a good mother isn’t all about sacrificing; it’s really investing and putting yourself higher on your priority list.’ Which is exactly what I did.
Maria Lally is Acting Features Director at Grazia UK, editing and writing features for print and digital.
