“Self-care isn’t selfish!” How to keep fit and have fun

Fearne’s been loving the UEFA Women’s EUROS, so this episode celebrates the huge summer of sport we’re having by listening back to some brilliant sportspeople who’ve told their stories on Happy Place. Plus, if you’ve been inspired to move your own body more, how can you set your own fitness goals and – most importantly! – enjoy the process? In this episode – -Broadcaster Gabby Logan reflects on just how momentous it was when the Lionesses won the EUROs in 2023 -UFC fighter Molly McCann explains what happens when you’re on your period as an athlete -Olympic rower Helen Glover chats about how motherhood made her even more ambitious for herself -DJ Adele Roberts inspires with her story of setting the world record as the fastest female to run the London Marathon with a stoma bag -Comedian Joel Dommett laughs about his own marathon attempts going tits up -Psychologist Pippa Grange shares what she knows about goal setting from working with England’s football team Listen to the full episodes here – Gabby Logan https://pod.fo/e/145e8b Molly McCann https://pod.fo/e/240297 Helen Glover https://pod.fo/e/283976 Adele Roberts https://pod.fo/e/22e78e Joel Dommett https://pod.fo/e/2eb8d0 Pippa Grange https://pod.fo/e/108a8a Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service. Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:29Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, a massive welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. Today, a celebration of the huge summer of sport that we're having, alongside a little bit of motivation to move your own body.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  When you're on the start line, you're so vulnerable. You don't get a head start just because you won the last race.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  They held jobs down in the day, they were playing football in the evenings. You know, I think you could really feel that history and those Lionesses have got a great sense of that as well, of their legacy.

• 0:55Speaker 04

  I'd never take a day off. Like even when I'm bad, I'll come in the gym, train through injury and it takes my coaches to look at me to go, go on today.

• 1:01Fearne Cotton?

  I started to see self-care as something that was good and not selfish. I think I used to think I was being selfish if I actually cared about myself.

• 1:08Speaker 05

  Care of the soul and tenderness are... If I think about athletes I've worked with, it's probably that that made the difference, rather than some technique.

• 1:17Speaker 06

  Do not remember from 25K to 30K, because I woke up in an ambulance at 30K. And I've got these awful flashes of what I think is the worst part of my personality that came out at this time.

• 1:30Fearne Cotton?

  Look, like I said, 2025 is a massive summer for sport. We had Wimbledon, we've got the Women's Rugby World Cup, the World Boxing Championships, the Outdoor World Athletic Championships too, and of course, we had the UEFA Women's Euros, which the Lionesses only went and bloody won for a second time in a row. Oh my God, we're obsessed with them. I don't know about you, but I love watching these huge moments. Women's football certainly has not only made me like football, but also given me such a fire in my belly. Maybe just because I'm a woman, but also because I'm a mother to a daughter. And a stepdaughter, the fire I've had in my belly has just been initiated by seeing

• 2:15Fearne Cotton?

  these amazing women go against the grain to put women's football out there. They've always been under celebrated and people have not paid attention to what they're doing. And they are a world class act, that team, showing us how it's done. Changing history, changing culture, changing the face of sport. I've loved every bit of the UEFA Women's Euros. It's been amazing. So today, I want to listen back to some of the athletes that we've had on the show, as well as a few non-athletes who've set their mind to some really impressive physical challenges. First up broadcaster Gabby Logan, who reflects on just how momentous it was when the Lionesses won the Euros the first time round. I love the chat that

• 2:57Fearne Cotton?

  we had with UFC fighter Molly McCann about what happens when you're on your period as an athlete, which is a huge topic that is not talked about anywhere near enough. And rower Helen Glover talks so brilliantly about how motherhood made her even more ambitious for herself. DJ Adele Roberts is a massive inspiration for so many after setting the world record as the fastest female to run the London Marathon with a stoma bag, which she calls Audrey. And comedian Joel Dommett has had his own fair share of marathon experiences too. Finally, if all these chats make you want to set your own fitness challenges, psychologist Pippa Grange shares what she knows about goal setting from working with England's men's football team.

• 4:16Speaker 07

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• 4:52Speaker 02

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• 5:24Fearne Cotton?

  All right, here we go. This is the show.

• 5:49Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, are you still buzzing from the Euros? Because that was just the most phenomenal moment.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  It was, and it was unexpected in a way. I don't mean that their success was unexpected, but at the beginning of it, people would say to me, "Do you think they can win?" Well, yeah, I think they can win. Whether they do is another thing, but what was unexpected was the reaction. It was just so joyous and how people really embraced it. And the atmosphere in the stadiums all the way through was incredible. I'd come out into the street outside, waiting to get into a car to go home, and I didn't want to leave because people were just loving it. And that's not the case when you go to a lot of other football matches and think back to... Last summer's men's Euros, that definitely wasn't the case. So all the way through, there was this lovely feeling of kind of togetherness and people enjoying the performances. And then to cap it all off, that dramatic final and what those Lionesses did, I just think

• 6:38Speaker 03

  it was one of the great moments in sport, really. Never mind women's sport, never mind football.

• 6:43Fearne Cotton?

  No, it was the greatest. I wept. I wept watching when the Lionesses were sort of running around the pitch and celebrating and you could feel that euphoria. I had this really unexpected sort of visceral reaction to it, where I was weeping, but I sort of felt it in my bones for women and like the women in my ancestry and this feeling. And I had to really like sit and try and process it after because I'm not a massive sort of dedicated football fan. I'll watch the big matches, like many people out there, and get carried away with that and the unity that that brings. But I felt this in my bones for women because it was like everybody was looking at women for the right reason. It wasn't about what they looked like or judging them or their intellect. It was these

• 7:27Fearne Cotton?

  women have trained so hard and all of that work has paid off and this is their moment for us to just watch them.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  To add to that as well, in a totally, you know, concur with what you're saying, is also the DNA, the history of those women. You know, some of those women that 50 years ago couldn't play the game, but carried on and kept fighting and paid for themselves to play for England and bought their own kit and defied the FA saying they couldn't play, you know. For those women, for the generations that kind of did it, not even semi-professional, you know, they held jobs down in the day, they were playing football in the evenings, they weren't welcome in football grounds. You know, I think you could really feel that history and those Lionesses have got a great sense of that as well, of their legacy, you know. I mean, the younger ones, you kind of have to, they're 23, they've just played football. They don't, you know, fully, fully understand what's happened before. But some of the older ones have been through both generations.

• 8:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  And that was really special, I think, to really feel that history coming to the fore that day.

• 8:23Fearne Cotton?

  Obviously, there's been a huge shift in attitude and in, you know, how we see women in sport in general, but specifically football because of everything that you've just said. But it still feels disproportionately imbalanced in a way. Do you think that's going to change over the years to come?

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it will. I think what's happened is a realisation that, you know, you can be entertained by women's football. You know, there was always this narrative that, well, women are not going to be as strong, as quick, as skillful as, you know, all those things that were thrown. We watch plenty of sport that men and women both play and admire them. Take tennis, right?

• 8:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  You go to the slams, you don't say, oh, I'm going to turn down a women's final ticket because you know you're going to be entertained. It's great sport. And I think what's happened is there's been a shift in lots of people's minds and a lot of male kind of sports watchers' minds as well, which I think is really important because both, you know, we need men and women to both enjoy women's football.

• 9:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Where they realise, actually, I can be entertained by this and stop comparing it to men's football.

• 9:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  And as my husband kept saying, well, he's always loved women's football. He comes from, he was a rugby player, but he comes from a background of kind of no nonsense, you know, and he hates male footballers rolling around on the pitch pretending to be injured. And he's like, women never do that, you know? He's like, I never see a woman doing that. They don't ever, you know, kind of do this whole drama kind of queen thing where they're pretending that they've been kicked.

• 9:41Fearne Cotton?

  No, we have periods every month. We haven't got enough shit to deal with. Not going to be rolling around when someone kicks it in the shin. So, are you kidding me?

• 9:46Speaker 03

  So, all of that, I think, has lent itself a kind of, an opportunity where people, clearly brands and, you know, corporate relationships, all those things are going to improve.

• 9:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Because people want to be aligned to the women's game because of all those values.

• 10:01Fearne Cotton?

  Absolutely.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  And then that will help the sport to grow. I think what happens now, what needs to happen now, if this is going to be kind of more than just a moment in time, is opportunity needs to be more widespread, you know, not just pockets in the country. If girls go to school in Devon and Cornwall and, you know, up in the Highlands and Islands, they should have the opportunity, like the boys at their school, to play football. It shouldn't be something that, just because a headmaster decides it, it should be something that is widely available to all girls.

• 10:27Fearne Cotton?

  So what's the, the training schedule at the moment? How's that going?

• 10:30Speaker 04

  So we are 13 weeks out.

• 10:32Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 10:33Speaker 04

  Fight camp will tend to be 12 to 8. I err on the side of caution, so I'll go maybe 14. Sometimes it's a bit too long in here to be that zoned in. But I just like to give myself extra time for illness, injury, menstrual cycle.

• 10:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  This is things like people wouldn't think about, but like when you're, if you're having a bit of a bad time, you need a little bit of a, a day off here and there, do you know what I mean?

• 11:01Fearne Cotton?

  Do you know what? It's so important to talk about the menstrual cycle in terms of, it is like elite sport for women. I think about it all the time if I'm watching the Olympics or women's football. And you're just like, oh my God, this is something that men in sport don't have to deal with. And it's not just when you're on your period, it's the whole damn cycle and the shift of hormones. How does that affect you? Especially if you're coming up to fight day and you're not feeling great?

• 11:25Speaker 04

  Well, we do for the scientific reason because say if I have to weigh in on the Friday. So I have to make weight Friday morning.

• 11:36Speaker 04

  Thursday, I'd have to cut the weight. So we have to sweat off a certain amount of pounds to make the weight. But depending on what part of the cycle you're in or what phase you're in, depends on how much water you're retaining. So if I know I'm due on round about the fight time, I'm like, oh, because it means I'm going to retain water. I'm going to be more hungry. I'm going to be hitting more and it's going to be harder to shift the weight. And there's obviously, not many people do a lot of, they don't delve into it enough, I think, because women in sport. And at that elite level, it's just been like, yeah, just get on with it, do you know what I mean? But I think we're at a moment now, especially with like women in football, where we're really starting to.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  To learn about it. And I know Emma Hayes, when she got the job at Chelsea, she employed someone to really learn about that because I'm sure there was a study released saying that when someone comes on and the first two or three days, you're eighty percent more likely to tear your ACL. So.

• 12:37Fearne Cotton?

  Is that right?

• 12:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, so because you're just much more tighter in your ligaments and everything's a lot more just, you're not, you're not as bendy, you're not as flexible and stuff. So I know the older I've got, the harsher my, my symptoms have become. So when we're training, just because of years of knowledge and communication with my coaches, I'd never take a day off. Like even when I'm bad, I'll come in the gym, train through injury and it takes my coaches to look at me to go, go home today, ma. You're not, you're like, they'll know, I'll not know when I'm gonna come on, but they can, like, my face just, I, I like, I look tired and my coach goes, did you sleep last night? I go, yeah. He goes, just rest. But where I'm doing wrestling

• 13:17Speaker 04

  and jiu-jitsu and stuff and you're getting thrown into different ways, we just choose not to, to train that for the day or two, just a bit precautionary. I've had twenty pro fights, I've been in the game for eleven years. Now we know I'm not just trying to have a day off and I need to look after myself.

• 13:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, of course. I mean, I, I just don't know how you do it. It's unbelievable. Because even if I'm doing this and I'm on my period, I'm like, oh.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  So the brain fog.

• 13:42Fearne Cotton?

  Your brain fog and you just feel a bit sluggish or you might feel really bloated. And to think about the physicality involved in what you do, I can't even imagine it. So I hope to God that there is gonna be more research, more of a push for this to be taken into consideration, that there to be, I don't know, just more knowledge about it out there so that you athletes can work to your optimum.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  I think in what we're doing in, in the combat sport, whereas there's been a lot, a lot done with it. And I think we're just a way. Like I said, when we're training and stuff, what to do, but there was people who would try and like, take contracept- like, take the pill to stop the periods. But then they couldn't cut the weight and like loads of madness, people taking diuretics to try and help them lose weight. But then that's a performance enhancer. So then they got, um, like a two year ban. Like, this is like going back a couple of years when people were just uneducated, but they're a little bit more educated now. But slow and steady, it's getting, it's getting a little bit better. But the, just the hardest part is if you're on, on fight day.

• 14:50Speaker 04

  And it's like, you just have to push through. I, I won't ever wear white or wear grey. Cause I've just got this fear of imagined coming on.

• 14:58Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, I can't, it's so huge.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  And do you know when we're talking about like maybe body dysmorphia and the way that we feel like, I'm someone who would never project me body online. Like, I might get drunk online and put pictures up being merry. I choose to put that out there, but I wouldn't really put stuff in bikinis. I, I just, it's just not my bag. It's just not what I'm about. But I think, imagine having to wear that little bra, them little shorts. And then you're on, so you're bloated. Like when people meet me, they go, "Oh, you're a lot skinnier in real life, aren't you, than when you look like on the telly?" And I'm like, "Oh, thanks." But I think sometimes like if you're on and that and you get the bloat and you just, ah, there's been fights where I've come on fight morning and emotionally I'm like, oh, thank God for that. But then I'm just like,

• 15:45Fearne Cotton?

  Paranoia.

• 15:46Speaker 04

  How am I gonna be now? But, um, the more education that I've done, the, I, yeah, when you actually come on, you're actually able to recover quicker. It's like, it's that week. So like, I, I'm not gonna be as tired in the exchange. I'm gonna be a little bit better, so.

• 16:04Fearne Cotton?

  And it's just about, I guess, knowing your cycle and knowing your body and working with it. But again, you need the support to be able to do that. And to even have it as a consideration, cause it feels wild that in female sport, it hasn't been a consideration until very recently. And it's such a huge thing to have to go through.

• 16:21Speaker 04

  I know. And I just feel now because we're voicing it, I feel like we get so much hate and like, "Oh, women being women again and this, that and the other."

• 16:28Fearne Cotton?

  Tough tits, yeah, we are.

• 16:29Speaker 04

  This is biology, so I've gotta get, yeah.

• 16:32Fearne Cotton?

  There's nothing we can do about it. It's a huge, huge deal. It's a huge deal. And do you celebrate things more now, so when you got a gold in Rio, for instance, were you able to actually really enjoy that moment and go, yes, a gold medal in my hands?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah. So that just, I felt present, I felt like I'd earned it, I felt like it belonged to me because I had just, yeah, I had fully kind of given myself to that experience and allowed myself to believe that that was me in that moment, rather than kind of avoiding those feelings. It definitely made the run up to Rio far less enjoyable. I felt the pressure so much more. I really didn't enjoy the experience of being out in Rio in the build up with the pressure, with the expectation, with the language around the way we were racing, because again, we were favourites and it was, the language was almost as if we didn't need to race because we had already won. And it was like, anyone could beat us. When you're on the start line, you're so

• 17:30Speaker 02

  vulnerable. You don't get a head start just because you won the last race. And so I got, I found myself getting really frustrated with the language used around us. And actually, it was lovely and it was really complimentary. But I was like, stop talking like that.

• 17:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Make people believe that we could lose because we could. And I didn't like that. Be almost, I felt like we were being set up for a fall. If we didn't win, it would have been a loss, you know, a big loss. And so it didn't, I didn't particularly enjoy it, but it definitely made the win feel a bit sweeter, you know, that we had kind of really come through that.

• 18:04Fearne Cotton?

  God, that pressure. I mean, the pressure of, I think this is what people perhaps underestimate. The pressure of being the best at something is so immense. It's so immense. Because like you say, if you're not then the best on any given occasion, it is a huge loss. Whereas if you are the underdog or you're unknown, anything's a plus. And it has such a different flavour to it.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:27Fearne Cotton?

  It's crazy. And also, it also is slightly reductive in terms of how much hard work you've had to put in to get to that point to be the best. Like, oh, they'll just win. Oh my God, four years of gruelling training to get to that point. It feels quite reductive to talk about it in that way.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  I think that's why, the older I've got, and I don't know if it's... That I've got older, that I've spent more time in sport, that I've got kids, probably a bit of everything. I think my perspective on success has totally shifted. And what success is for me definitely looks far less like medals. But, you know, it sounds really cheesy, but the journey is really, really important. How you get there, what you represent, what you're doing along the way, what you're changing along the way is so much more important to me. Because if I had ended my career, so I ended my career after Rio, and if I had just left it there, I would have been really proud of what I had done. But I've done more in the last two Olympics than I have in those first two. And I think that for me, that shift in perspective of what's important and what it means is really different.

• 19:26Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm, without a doubt. I mean, we haven't even got on to the juggle, the juggle of it all. And it's so, I find this conversation a tricky one in ways because whenever I've heard you interviewed before, people are almost obsessional when talking to women who are elite athletes who happen to also be mums. It, it becomes this huge topic where we become hungry for like, how, and how do you do it? And how, and what's the juggle like? And how are you achieving so much? And I think I feel these conflicting emotions of awe, because I am in awe of what you're able to do. But frustration, because we don't ask male athletes these questions.

• 20:07Fearne Cotton?

  There is this absolute blanket coverage assumption that if a male athlete is training or racing, the mother will be at home looking after the kids. We don't even ask them like, oh, how's the juggle? How are you managing your children and your amazing sporting career? With women, we're obsessed with, with how it's done. How do you feel about that?

• 20:29Speaker 02

  I think that it's a really important conversation to keep having.

• 20:34Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  Because the moment we stop having it, even if, even if we stop having the conversation for the right reasons, because we say, no, you know, we shouldn't keep asking this because, you know, because we're not asking the men or because it should always be assumed that women can do it. Then it stops highlighting that actually it's not just there as an option for everybody.

• 20:52Fearne Cotton?

  Nope.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  It's not easy and it's not put in place in the way that it could be. So I do think it's really important to be. And people do say to me, oh, you know, do you start to feel that, you know, motherhood is, is sort of, should always go hand in hand in this kind of second half of your career? And I just think absolutely it should because it's, it's a massive reason why I came back. It's a huge driver for me. Originally, it was all about kind of proving it can be done. And then it was about kind of doing it with my family and with my kids. But I think there's a really, really kind of fine line that I've always been careful to tread in it, which is, I think, I want a champion, the fact that women can go back and do whatever they want to do when they've had kids.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  But I also think that not everybody should, not everybody should want to. I never want anyone to ever feel less than because they don't go either back to work or back to their hobbies or passions. There's so many different routes that everyone should take. And I think the most important thing is that the option is there.

• 21:57Fearne Cotton?

  But that's so important in this conversation. I think sometimes when we're talking about this subject, it's taken in such a black and white fashion that it's like, oh, well, all women have to find their passion afterwards. And of course, we're all different. Some people, their whole life is they want to be a mum and that that feels right for them. And that's amazing. And equally, you can go back if you've got the right support and people around you to enable you to go and fulfill your dreams and passions. There's no right or wrong. It's just like you say, the option is so important. And one of the things that, the, one of the main barriers for women going back to work or carrying on with a career or a passion, like, let's use the word passion. Like, I feel like we're not allowed to say that we want to do something. It has to be like, I need to go back to work.

• 22:43Fearne Cotton?

  If you really want to go back and do something because you absolutely bloody love it. One of the main barriers is support. That's the, the hugest problem here. I mean, you have managed to juggle this with your husband. Brilliant Steve Backshaw, who we're all absolutely obsessed with and in love with. You have this amazing communicative relationship where he's away at the moment, you're juggling at home. Whilst you were doing the Olympics, he had the kids. How much compromise is involved? How do those conversations go? How are you, how are you managing to juggle that?

• 23:13Speaker 02

  It's a huge amount of compromise. And I think. It would only ever work in the short term. So for this Paris Olympics, I was only back at training for eighteen months before the Games. Um, because it was shorter Olympic cycle because of Covid.

• 23:26Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  And around the Tokyo Olympics, I did a lot of my training from home. And then again, it was only maybe six, nine months that I was kind of back in full time training. Any more than that, I mean, he was, he was having to make huge sacrifices with his job and with his work. And it's not sustainable long term for both of us to kind of have a career on hold. And so it, it just, yeah, I, it's kind of like, I've almost found a solution because I've shown that it's possible to do. But it's not a practical solution in terms of going back long term and being able to afford childcare and things like that. So, yeah, the number one, the fact that he was on board enough to say, yep, I'll step up and I'll, I'll help out.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  Number two, the fact that he has a job that he can be flexible with. But it was, yeah, it definitely has a, has a timeline, how much you can, you can have that flex.

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• 26:30Fearne Cotton?

  Right, back to the show. Here's Adele Roberts, Joel Domit and Pippa Grange. You actually came to running very late in life. So you were 37, which again, I think is a really important thing for people to hear. Not just about running, but anything. Thinking you can't start something a little later down the line. You don't have to start something age 12. It can be down the line that you pick up an instrument, start reading for the first time, whatever the hell it might be. But it was running at 37. What took you to running? Yes, amen. I just want to say that again, everybody that's listening. I know you know this already because of this brilliant podcast, but it's never too late to start again and to change your life. Absolutely. It was my sister, actually, that inspired me to run, my little sister.

• 27:12Fearne Cotton?

  I just remember being lazy in bed one Sunday and seeing that she completed.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  A race for life, a five K that she'd done for our auntie, who sadly also had cancer, who absolutely smashed it, my auntie Anne, she had breast cancer and she's 10 years clear of breast cancer.

• 27:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, Auntie Anne.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  She's one of my heroes. And at that time, I didn't know it was for me in the future. But I remember seeing my sister doing this five K and she did it from scratch. I didn't even know how far a five K was at the time. I was like, is that far? And then when I realised it was 3.1 miles, I was like, I can't believe my sister's just done that. No training, just done it out of the the passion in her heart. And I just remember slobbing in bed, probably eating last night's pizza going, oh, God. You can do better, Adele. Like, that's your little baby sister. You should be doing something. And that's when I think I started to turn my life around. I was like, right, no more moping anymore. Um, get yourself out of bed. Not that day. I probably just stayed in bed.

• 28:10Fearne Cotton?

  In a few weeks' time, I'll start this running thing.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Well, I think that's when it clicked. And I was one of those people that'd be like, I'll start Monday. And then I didn't start Monday. But eventually I did start the Monday.

• 28:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. And starting running, let's be honest, isn't fun.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  No, it's not.

• 28:23Fearne Cotton?

  It's not like all of a sudden you go, oh, I'm running five K. It's easy. You know, it takes time, but it's worth persevering. Did you? When did the mental side of it click in? Oh, this feels good mentally. Because I'm certainly not running because it feels great physically. Sometimes I am, but sometimes I think, oh, God, everything hurts, quite bothered. But for my mind, every damn time I get that mental clarity, or even when it's poster on, I'm like, oh, something's just relaxed mentally. At what stage in your running experience do you think that hit?

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, it took a long time. I just started with walking.

• 28:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  I've got a little stepper band off my friend and I just used that and it had like little challenges on it and I just worked my way up. So once I'd started like walking, I feel like it's almost like, once you unpick one part of your bad habits, you can start to address the rest and just give yourself the time. So once I started walking, I was then like, oh, maybe I could like start to tweak what I eat. And then I started to tweak what I watched and what I listened to and how I dressed.

• 29:23Fearne Cotton?

  That's so important. Yeah, yeah. So it was a knock on.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  But it started with the walking and started, I started to see self-care as something that was good and not selfish. I think I used to think I was being selfish if I actually cared about myself. So I'll use anything I can now to make myself feel positive and to keep myself on track because again, it's a daily practice. There's a very lazy person side inside of me.

• 29:46Fearne Cotton?

  I love this. Use something like there's a some, like a lazy sloth inside of you, but you and you have to be like, no, no sloth, we're running.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  So it took a long time, but eventually, like you say, even with the running, I whinged and hated it. And my first marathon, my poor producer who worked with me at Radio One, they will tell you, I whinged all the time. Like honestly, I must have been such a nightmare. But once I'd done, once I'd got fit enough to not worry about my body, like you said, your mind's free and you're like, oh, this is glorious. But it took a very long time.

• 30:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it does. Which I think also ensures people don't give up if they're on the sort of beginning of their running journey.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:25Fearne Cotton?

  And there are some days still, you think, oh, this is awful.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 30:28Fearne Cotton?

  But it's still worth doing it.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Amen.

• 30:29Fearne Cotton?

  Still worth doing it. So let's talk about your most recent marathon because it was only 18 months after your life-changing operation, where you were out there on the streets of London, running a marathon with a stomer. I mean, this, and also at three hours 30.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  When you say that, I forget the time, like.

• 30:48Fearne Cotton?

  What? I don't, I don't understand. Like, it's just mind-blowing. And I'm not saying that with any level of, you know, being patronizing, three hours 30 is fucking quick no matter what you've been through. Three hours 30 is like you're a professional athlete, Adele.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  No, it is my personal best. I'm like, how could I run it faster with a stomer than when I had my intestines inside my body? But, but that's mindset for you. And I think that's the difference because I had no business running that marathon that fast with the body that I had. It wasn't in good nick. It's even more fit now, my body, because I'm a year on. But that's mindset and that is belief and that is really going after something and committing to it. And I think that is me saying, I know you've sworn a few times, so I hope you don't mind, fuck you, cancer. It's like, no, just no. I just got myself to the point where I was like, I am not going through that chemotherapy and getting this stomer and it not mean anything. It's like, I'm going out in style, you know?

• 31:47Fearne Cotton?

  It's just like. You did that. I mean, one of your friends, Ian, had said to you previously, running is 80% mindset. And you'd been a bit like, oh, bless Ian, yeah, sure. And actually, you're like, yes. Yeah, totally. True. Yeah. It's not about, it's a bit about your body, you know, you have to have a certain level of fitness, but you can still get out there and run if you, you know, if you are able bodied and you can go and do that. But actually, what's going on in your brain is more important than anything. Amen. And I think the mind leads and the body follows. Yeah. And I think that goes through all areas of life. And that's why I hope that this book can help people, whether they are unfortunately dealing with cancer, or they're about to get a stoma and they're not quite sure what it's going to be like.

• 32:31Fearne Cotton?

  Or maybe they're not a runner, they're like, I don't want to run because my girlfriend Kate does not want to run. She's not interested in those chapters. She's not being inspired by your 330? Not at all, not at all. I love it. She knows who she is and she's cool with it. I like that. I like that. But, but I think life just throws those curveballs at you. And I think that hopefully the mindset side of this book will help people no matter what they're facing. You know, whether it's like grief, it's the end of a big relationship. Because I think that to, to get through life and, and what this podcast talks about a lot is mindset. And may we add on top of that, the night from hell that you had before the London Marathon. Oh God, yeah. I'm like, which, which night? Because Audrey's so naughty.

• 33:14Fearne Cotton?

  I was reading this book and I felt sick for you because I am obsessed with sleep because it's not guaranteed with me. So I get really panicky about if, even if I've got a podcast, I won't go out and do anything in the evening before, because it might disrupt. And that's too much. I know I've got to address the balance. I'm a work in progress. I'm very happy to say that. I've not mastered any of this stuff, but I don't trust myself. If I go out, if I get back, I'm overstimulated and then I start thinking about things, I won't sleep. It might mess up the podcast. I don't want to do that. So I'm really like nerdy about my routine and sleep and yada, yada. I can't imagine things going so tits up the night before a marathon. And you still managing to do what you did. Tell us about this awful night. I was shaking reading this book.

• 34:00Fearne Cotton?

  So. Because you want the perfect night's sleep before a marathon. Without a doubt. That's all you want. You just want to sleep for eight hours. It's not a massive ask. Oh mate. So the, the night before, it's a rocky error really for me, but it's because I was making it up as I was going along. There's not many people that have run a marathon with a stomer, so I didn't know what to eat. So I decided to eat mashed potato and porridge the night before. And is that normally okay with your stomer, like what? Yeah, yeah, it's palatable with a stomer, so it's easy digestible foods. Really, if Audrey had her way, I'd be eating sausage rolls, anything beige, like any processed food is really good. Heaven. Cause it's already been broken down by industry and you just almost like put it in your body and it melts away and it goes in.

• 34:43Fearne Cotton?

  So I thought, right, mashed potato and porridge oats, I'll have that the night before and then I'll be okay and I'll be full of like glycogen, ready to run the marathon. But Audrey didn't digest the porridge and the mashed potato and decided to chuck it out my body at three in the morning.

• 35:03Fearne Cotton?

  I'm deep breathing, I'm deep breathing about this one. So you feel the tingle, I get woken up all the time by the tingles of, of Audrey. So I'm like, is she still in her bag or is she going wild as she managed to break the seal on the bag? Because what, what your stomer can do is,

• 35:20Fearne Cotton?

  stomer bags aren't an exact science and they're still being worked on, so they stick to your body with like this sticker. And if you have a naughty stomer, sometimes they can get the sticker off and, and just escape. And then it's basically like having an, an open tap on the front of your body, it just comes out and you can't control it. Um, and yeah, so I'm like the exorcist spewing like porridge and mashed potato in a fancy hotel. So I, I like jumped out of bed, ran into the shower. It's doing its thing, spraying it all over the shower, but then my, my pyjamas are ruined. And then it got stuck in the shower, so then I had to like, the shower started flooding because it wouldn't go down the, the plug hole. So because it was fancy, it was like one of those flush to the floor showers.

• 36:03Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, you want a shit shower in this situation, not a fancy one. And then it all comes out from like the shower door and it just like floods the actual bathroom. So I'm there with no clothes on, cleaning a posh hotel bathroom of like porridge oats and mashed potato at three in the morning. And Audrey's just like.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  And then you can't get back to sleep. But this is again, a really important life lesson for any of us on just a regular day. To not write off the success of a day because you haven't slept. And I used to do this all the time. I'd go, oh, well, today's absolutely screwed. Because I didn't sleep and it's all gonna go to shit and I'd be so dramatic. And actually, I'd get to the end of the day and go. Well, that was all right.

• 36:44Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Like, there's no drama. I did the job and everything was fine. And I'm a little bit more tired than I'd be normally, but it's fine. You not only managed to get over that, you know, the would be drama, you managed to run a marathon in three hours thirty.

• 36:57Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Hey, we haven't talked about the marathon, which was a big moment of this year for you. I mean, you are insanely fit. You set again, your goals really high. You were trying to go, what, sub three hours this year?

• 37:10Speaker 06

  Trying, yeah, yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Which is a professional athlete.

• 37:15Speaker 06

  Not quite, but it is like, it's a thing that everyone aims for. Sub three is like a thing that like, it's. I was really wanting to do it before I was forty. That was like the big thing that I've basically been working up for the last sort of year and a half. It just, for lots of people, unfortunately, the marathon in London this year was not that day. It was a really hot day. It was quite stifling, the heat. And so it's just really frustrating and I just, I mean, it's funny to that, it's really funny. But I just, I was on course to do it. I did a three ten in Amsterdam in the October before. So I was like, okay, and I really trained for it.

• 37:55Speaker 06

  My training runs went well. I was like, this is gonna be okay. And then suddenly the heat hit on that day, but everyone was like, we're gonna do it, still go for it, it's gonna be fine. About fifteen K, I was like, this, this is feeling too hot. Like, this is, should be a breeze at fifteen. Got to the half, I was like, oh god. I remember twenty five K. It's forty two K in a marathon. And twenty five, I was like, again, this shouldn't feel this hard. I do not remember. From twenty five K to thirty K, because I'd work up in an ambulance at thirty K. And I've got these awful flashes of what I think is the worst part of my personality that came out at this time.

• 38:36Fearne Cotton?

  What?

• 38:36Speaker 06

  Honestly. So I don't remember any of it. And I have a flash of me being dragged by two marathon employees to the ambulance. And me shouting at what is people who are watching the marathon and just going like, someone record this. This needs to be documented. Someone record this. Quite angrily, really.

• 39:01Fearne Cotton?

  Which people did?

• 39:02Speaker 06

  Which some people did. And then I got to the ambulance and I was saying to the ambulance, incredible St John's ambulance people. I was like, has anyone got Gabby Logan's number?

• 39:16Fearne Cotton?

  Why are you trying to call?

• 39:17Speaker 06

  She needs to know what's happening. This needs to be on television.

• 39:21Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, because she's hosting it, right? Yeah.

• 39:24Speaker 06

  So I'm like thinking that like Gabby Logan gives a shit about the fact I'm in an ambulance. Like, I think I'm more important than the 50,000 people who are running. Like, it's the worst side of me that's ever come out and God forbid it ever comes out again. I'm a horrific humor.

• 39:41Fearne Cotton?

  We've all got a shadow side.

• 39:43Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 39:43Fearne Cotton?

  Okay, we've all got it.

• 39:44Speaker 06

  I thought it was a nice guy. I'm a piece of shit inside.

• 39:49Fearne Cotton?

  We've all got that side. It'll just manifest in different ways. We've all got it.

• 39:53Speaker 06

  I was doing my first Radio 2 show that Saturday, the Saturday after the marathon. And again, I remember just saying to the St John's ambulance people, like, oh, at least I've got something to talk about on Radio 2. They're like trying to like give me an IV drip and trying to get my thing down. All I'm thinking about is.

• 40:11Fearne Cotton?

  Work.

• 40:11Speaker 06

  Like, I'm such a fucking psychopath. I'm an absolute psychopath.

• 40:17Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, it's so good. It's so good. I mean, you poor bugger. Because I know how much that means to you, doing that sub three. And how, you know, you set a goal, you wanna bloody do it. You wanna achieve it.

• 40:29Speaker 06

  This is something that I wish I was better at in my career. Because I find it so easy to set fitness goals and be like, I wanna do that. I wanna do a sub three. I wanna, I wanna run this, this fast. I wanna be able to lift this weight that's this heavy. I'm so good at that because it feels so palpable. It still feels so, so gettable.

• 40:46Fearne Cotton?

  What do you think you learned from that experience? Because I'm imagining in that situation where you're lying in the ambulance, you could be really pissed off, frustrated, feel a sense of injustice because you've done all the training. Or do you still find the humour in it?

• 41:00Speaker 06

  I definitely find the humour in it. Again, it's something that, that's brilliant about being a stand-up. Because if something fails, then it's a story. So it's like all fuel for your next, your next endeavour. Like it's, a failure is a, is a plus in a way.

• 41:15Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 06

  And that's, that's great. I like, I, at least you've got a story out of it. And the story is better now, in reality, than if I just did it.

• 41:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, did the sub three, like done. There's no story. Yeah, well done. You're really fit.

• 41:28Speaker 06

  Literally got my child to come to the finish line wearing a t-shirt that says, "Sub three", and I did it in six hours.

• 41:36Speaker 06

  So embarrassing.

• 41:39Speaker 06

  So embarrassing.

• 41:41Fearne Cotton?

  That t-shirt needs to be in a frame.

• 41:44Speaker 06

  It's like, I mean, it's sub three days. To be fair, I wasn't specific in the timeframe. But it's, it's so mad.

• 41:55Speaker 06

  I like set it all up because the-

• 41:56Fearne Cotton?

  The t-shirt is so extra.

• 41:57Speaker 06

  It's so, because like, I know the way I work and the way that my brain works during these long runs and stuff, is that I needed to give myself something to be accountable for. So if I told everyone, "I'm going for sub three hours. I'm gonna fucking do it, whether you like it or not, come on", whereas if I was silent about it, I would be like, well, you know, halfway through, I'd be like, "I haven't told anyone about it", "So let's just do 305. That's fine", whereas if I had that goal, I'm thinking at the end, my, my child's wearing a t-shirt.

• 42:26Speaker 06

  I've made clothing, I've made merch for a thing I haven't even achieved yet.

• 42:31Fearne Cotton?

  You've gone on like Snappy Snaps website, like Dom and Tisha.

• 42:35Speaker 06

  It's awful, so awful, the whole thing is it's so, it's yeah, I don't know why I fill my life with these things and I don't actually know what my next sort of goal is going to be, but I know that in the last.

• 42:46Fearne Cotton?

  You need to have a challenge or that sort of person.

• 42:47Speaker 06

  Definitely, because I I've realised it the last month, when I haven't had like a goal, I was like, I'm just going to give myself a small rest and I just feel just a bit like I'm I'm missing something in my life.

• 43:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. So how do you do that around goal setting? Because obviously you've worked with the England team and all these amazing sports personalities and as I said, you know, huge people that are doing amazing, big work in the world. How do you let go of that but still set goals to say, we want to win, we want to do well, but without clinging tight to an expectation?

• 43:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, goal setting is super important and super relevant in relation to tasks or outcomes, right? My my point with this is that we think of our whole life as outcomes, a series of outcomes. So, you know, if you're setting a goal, if you're about to go into a golf tournament and you've set a goal about how you want to play and you're focused deeply on the process and, you know, what you do here and what you do there and every step of that is a a goal process, a goal oriented process, that's fantastic. But then, once you step onto the green, you have to let go, not of the process and what you do, but of the expectation about the outcome. So there's goals and there's outcomes. Outcomes, we don't

• 44:07Speaker 05

  control, actually, I know that's really hard to hear, but we what we control is our action and the process and the effort, right? And the spirit or character that we bring to it. We don't ever control the outcome, right? So you let go of that bit and you think, how how can I bring my particular form of talent or effort or care to this endeavour? And and the difference between those two things, like the goal is in sport particularly, or any kind of performance, setting the goals and practising your craft and being as as dedicated and as disciplined as possible around that, needed, brilliant, love it. However, you don't have to let your mind do the same thing.

• 44:51Speaker 05

  You know, you don't have to let your sense of sort of, you know, who you are go down the same track.

• 44:58Fearne Cotton?

  So when you're working with big sports personalities or teams, my, I guess, naive approach to what you would do with a team is that you're there to make sure they win and don't get too scared going in and doing their best, giving it, you know, their all and not being held back by outside judgment, et cetera. But is part of your job also to help eliminate the fear of losing?

• 45:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, it's a while actually since I've done the sort of direct work with teams and athletes. The time with England was a bit of an anomaly. You know, I was running the department in England and the men's team, it was too, by the time I started, we just didn't have time before the World Cup to find somebody who would do the frontline work. So I did it, which was lucky. But, you know, I think that there's two things that are very underrated in that kind of performance work, and I wish it was in more kinds of performance work, your field included. One thing is, I think it's bringing some tenderness into the endeavour. Like, if you're going on a big adventure

• 46:08Speaker 05

  to win something or to, you know, give the performance of your life, there needs to be tenderness in there. There needs to be moments of, you know, where's the moment where the struggle can be released? Where's the care? And the other thing is care of the soul. So, you know, when I talk about care of the soul, for me, you've got the mind and the spirit, you know, the mind is a crazy thing we're all very familiar with that needs driving, not allowing it to drive you. That's, you know, the control of that, the management of that. The spirit is kind of the... Zest, the vigour and the sense of adventure that goes into it, right?

• 46:51Speaker 05

  There's a middle man and the middle man is soul. And soul is that sort of more ordinary, more grounded, more everyday. Part of us that holds our imagination, holds our possibilities. And where we sort of feel that there is place for dark and light. Spirit is usually upward onward, you know, let's go get it, you know, knock them dead kind of thing. Soul in the middle, I think, is so often missing in performance endeavours. And for me, care of the soul and tenderness are. If I, if I think about all the teams I've worked in and all the athletes or bosses or performers I've worked with.

• 47:30Speaker 05

  Really, if they looked back, it's probably that, that, that made the difference rather than some technique.

• 47:38Fearne Cotton?

  I think Pippa made a really bloody good point there. Any passions you have, any challenges you gear yourself up for have to be about the process. That's the bit that you've got to enjoy, rather than focusing so closely on a singular outcome. I have not been exercising anywhere near enough recently, just because life has been very bloody hectic. And summer holidays and kids and all of that stuff. But as I think towards the autumn, I'm going to set my goals, listen to Pippa, enjoy the process. Be humbled by my lack of fitness and see what happens. Because I know that moving my body makes me feel so much better. There'll be links in the show notes to all the full episodes that you've heard little bits of today. So do go back and listen to the ones that really grabbed you.

• 48:22Fearne Cotton?

  I'll be back here in a couple of days' time, but in the meantime, a massive thanks to all the incredibly impressive people that you've heard from today. To the producer, Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios and to you, you are ace. Tennis pun not intended.

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• 50:05Speaker 02

  Hello, I'm Joanna Fletcher.

• 50:07Speaker 07

  And I'm Marco Burchella.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  And this is Boots Off.

• 50:11Speaker 07

  We are friends who have spent a decade together, walking up mountains, across deserts, and along coastlines with some seriously awesome groups of humans.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  And something happens when you're out there, feet on the ground, surrounded by nature. The conversations just spill out of you.

• 50:26Speaker 07

  This series is about the adversities that lead to adventure.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  The adventures that lead to adversity.

• 50:31Speaker 07

  And how life can be one big adventure in itself.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  Listen every Thursday, just search for Boots Off.