Sophie Raworth is to represent England as an athlete at the age of 51.
The BBC newsreader has been selected to compete in over-50s women’s team in the international Fleet Half Marathon next month.
Announcing the news, she said: “Got myself an England vest! Came 2nd in my age group at #farnboroughhalfmarathon which means I get to run for England at Fleet half in March. Not something I expected to be writing at the age of 51.”
The mum of three took up the sport nine years ago and is getting better all the time. At the Farnborough Half Marathon last month, she achieved a personal best of 1 hour, 34 minutes.
Sophie said: “The extraordinary thing is I appear to be getting quicker as I get older. People tell themselves they are too old to get started. No, they are not.”
Sophie has run 15 marathons, including all six World Marathon Majors in Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York, and three ultra marathons - including the 156 mile six-day Marathon des Sables through the Sahara Desert.
The mum of three first took up running in 2006 when she was offered the chance to do the Great North Run, which she managed in an impressive two hours and six minutes.
Then she stopped running for four years and had her third child. It was while watching the 2010 London Marathon that she decided she needed a challenge to help her shift the pregnancy weight, so she entered the 2011 race.
A personal trainer suggested she had it in her to finish the race in under four hours - which led Sophie to near disaster.
“I was so obsessed with breaking four hours I was worried that if I drank too much on the day I’d constantly be stopping to go to the loo and that would add time. So I didn’t drink anything,” she explained.
But at 24 miles the lack of water hit Sophie and she blacked out. She ended up in an ambulance being given oxygen, but after two hours she insisted she was going to complete the race - which she did in six hours 24 minutes, raising £12,000 for Cancer Relief.
As well as donning her international running jersey for the first time, Sophie is also fronting a Sport Relief campaign to encourage older people to get off their sofas and out into the park.
She will take on BBC Radio 3’s Beat Beethoven challenge, which sees members of the public run 5km around to the music of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony - performed live by the BBC Philharmonic.
“I want people to see it is possible,” she said. “Nobody is too old. Your head tells you that you can’t do things. Believe me, you can. There’s an old saying: you never regret a run. And it is absolutely true.”
