Reggie Yates Couldn't Run a 5K. Then He Trained for a Marathon.
Reggie Yates has built a career on throwing himself into the deep end — prisons, refugee camps, war zones — because he believes the only way to really understand something is to live it. So when he decided to train for his first marathon, nobody who knows his work was surprised. What surprised everyone, including Reggie, was how much he fell in love with it.
This week on The Runna Podcast, Reggie joins Anya to talk about the training block that rewrote his sense of his own limits, the race day that didn't go to plan, and why he's a runner now — for life.
Reggie's Running Journey
Not long ago, a 5K genuinely finished Reggie off, and not at race pace.
"5K was like my maximum — but I would die at the end of a 5K. And that's not really pushing it. We're talking 26, 27 minutes, and it would kill me."
He started his training block in Germany at minus nine degrees, stuck on a treadmill, staring out at a frozen Berlin and almost quitting out of sheer boredom. Then he got home to London, ran outside for the first time, and everything changed.
"Suddenly it felt like I was doing something completely different. It was just so freeing and so liberating."
Somewhere in the long runs, suffering, then not caring, then finding a strange clarity, he realised he'd become a runner.
"This process has made me grow such a love for it in a way that I just didn't have before."
When Race Day Didn't Go To Plan
Race day started beautifully: old friends at bag drop, strangers cheering him by name, a stint running alongside Peppa Pig. Then the heat hit. His body stopped cooperating at 17K.
"I don't remember stopping. I don't remember feeling weird. I just remember running, and then not, and being covered in packs of ice."
His internal temperature had reached 40.5°. He didn't finish. But what he says about it is the most useful part of the whole conversation — grateful for the care he got, clear-eyed about what the day really meant, and more motivated than ever.
"Even though I had an internal temperature of 40.5 in the hospital, I got to go home — and I get to look back on the day remembering the best bits and the reason I did it."
The training, he's certain, was the achievement all along.
Everyone Can Be A Runner
Reggie's message to anyone who thinks running isn't for them is refreshingly free of lycra and rice-crispy-square evangelism. You don't need a PB, a finish line, or the Instagram-runner look.
"If you can lace up your trainers and move, you're a runner."
This episode is for first-timers, returners, and anyone who's had a race go sideways. You'll walk away with something.