Paula Radcliffe's London Marathon tips as 2025 runners announced

Whether you're an experienced runner or at the start of your fitness journey, former Olympian Paula Radcliffe shares her top tips.

Triple London marathon winner Paula Radcliffe, 50, spoke exclusively to Yahoo Life UK during the recent opening of the Anda Barut Collection resort in Turkey, which she is promoting along with other professional athletes and Olympians. Here, she share the highs and lows of her career in high-performance sport, plus her top tips for budding runners.

You retired from competing professionally in 2015, how does running feel different for you now?

I have a much more relaxed approach now than before when I was competing, but there are certain things that still stay the same. My trainers are always in my hand luggage, never in a checked bag, so I always have them to hand.

What can someone running their first marathon do to mentally prepare for the race?

I think the key word is 'prepare'. It's about having consistency week on week, building up to it. When you go in knowing that you've prepared, this is when you should be excited. This is the party at the end of the training, so go in feeling really up for it!

Also, don't start off too quickly, build into the race gradually and aim to run the second half of the marathon faster. Know in your mind that in every marathon there are ups and downs. So there's going to be times within that marathon that are tough. You have to really focus and go back to all of those sessions that you worked on and got through in training when it felt tough. Go back to that mentality in the race.

How do you get yourself in the right mental headspace to run?

There are a couple of psychological states which can really help. The first one is enjoying what you're doing. Remind yourself of that feeling when you come back from a run. When you're struggling to get yourself to go out, just think what it's going to feel like when you come back. Even though you feel tired, or you didn't feel like running, you will always feel better after.

The other one is to find a go-to technique that you're going to use in those tough times. So, 'Am I going to sing a song in my head? Am I going to repeat a mantra? Am I going to remind myself of the goal? Am I going to count?' – which is all I did. I just counted up to 100 [in races] and then started again. But it's just whatever helps you to stay focused on one foot in front of the other and not panicking that, 'This hurts me, that hurts me and I've still got 20 miles to go.'

How does running make you feel?

If you could bottle up the feeling, it would be amazing. I am sure there's a reason that runners are the happiest people, just because of that feeling that you get.

How do you handle setbacks or the disappointment of a ‘bad’ run?

If you enjoy what you do, then you will get over those runs where you're disappointed. I'm a big believer in letting those emotions out. Have a cry, throw some stuff around, have a big bar of chocolate, have a glass of wine, whatever it takes to process those emotions.

At the end of the day, just remember this isn't life and death, it’s a sport. It's fun, and it's there to help you feel better. So it's not the be all and end all.

Go and find something else that you enjoy doing that will make you feel good. Spend some time with family, go watch a movie, read a book. Anything to help pick you up a little bit and then get out for a run as soon as possible and get back to enjoying it.

What advice would you give to anyone starting their running journey?

I think a lot of people don't embrace the psychological side of the training as well. It's really important. That's why I say, "Don't try to hit marathon speed in your long runs, try to hit marathon effort and tune into what that effort feels like," because that is what you’re going to need to help you through on race day.

How do you fuel before a run?

My pre-run race fuel would be to make porridge with water, add some chopped up bananas, some honey and a little bit of dark chocolate. I always had some dark chocolate before a race, and either a cup of green tea or a cup of coffee.

I then keep sipping energy drinks right up to the start line. Keep your carbohydrate stores topped up right up to the start too.

Gels came in properly towards the end of my career. I didn't really use them and then I slowly started to bring them in. I think now it's a great way to keep that energy store topped up and make sure that your body is getting all of the glycogen fuel that it needs to get you through the final five or six miles.

Have you found that what's needed for a good run has changed significantly during your career?

There are a lot of gimmicky things, but there are a lot of great things as well. The improvement in shoe technology, for example, is not a gimmick. It's helping older athletes stay healthy and recover better and is helping all athletes run faster.

There are improvements in watch technology that have their benefits too, but I'm also a big believer in the old school 'tune into your body' mentality.

Don’t get too caught up in what your watch is telling you and the actual mile splits [the time that it takes to complete a specific distance]. Being able to tune into what your body is capable of that day is really important. It might be that you’re having a bad day and you have to scale it back a little bit effort-wise – especially in the first half of the marathon and then reap the rewards in the second half.

If you try to stick to an exact split time [a time target for a specific distance within the race] and push through that psychological voice that's saying, 'This is too quick' then you will pay the price in the second half. So it’s far better to finish strongly and think, 'I could have picked it up a little bit sooner,' than to think, 'I wish I hadn’t gone so fast in the first half.'

Were there any points where you felt you hadn't performed your best?

There were a couple of points during my career, actually my qualifying race for the 2012 Berlin Marathon after having my son. I had postpartum hyperthyroidism so it was pretty hard to train through. They [doctors] could tell me what it was, but they couldn’t tell me when it was going to go. They gave me a window of between nine months to a year after giving birth.

Luckily, it went a couple of weeks before the race, but I knew I wasn’t at optimal fitness. The psychological, competitive side of me couldn’t not go for it in the first half [of the race], so I knew I was over-committing and I knew it was going to be hard in the second half. But I knew I had the psychological building blocks to deal with that.

How do you think running has impacted your life beyond athletics?

I think running has impacted my life in so many ways. I wouldn't be the person that I am without it. I think it's helped me discover so much about myself.

It's obviously introduced me to so many amazing friends. My husband and my family have kind of grown up with running being a part of their family as well.

I know I'm biased, but there is no better community than the running community, in my mind. Wherever you are in the world, you will find another runner out there. You'll be out running and bump into someone who will say hello even if you're speaking different languages within a marathon or race. You'll see someone going through a tough time and another runner will help them. I think that's why it is such a special community because everyone appreciates what it takes.

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