It’s a bright, sunny day in August and my grandsons want to go to the pump track. This involves much lugging of bikes, scooters, skateboards and helmets, as well as the usual buckling up of little boys in their chunky car seats and the schlepping around of a weighty backpack filled with snacks, spare clothing and plasters.
Ten years ago, I’d have groaned at the idea of all this and worried about the dire effect it might have on my back.
Now? Aged 61 with three grandsons aged six, four and one, I love it. It’s evidence that my grand plan, formulated seven years ago when my son and daughter-in-law first told us they were expecting a baby, is working.
Even at that early stage, I knew I wanted to be the kind of badass granny who could lift bikes onto roof racks, carry surfboards to the beach and pick up a hefty toddler without doing my back in.
Crucially, as my husband is older than me – now in his mid-70s and infested with rugby injuries – I knew I’d be the one who would have to keep up with the grandchildren, whether we were swimming in the sea or they were speeding off on their scooters.
Above all, I didn’t want a repeat of the situation that blew up when I became a new mother in 1993, when I knew I hadn’t prepared myself physically for the task. Within 10 weeks of coming home after an emergency caesarean section, I’d hurt my back lugging the baby’s heavy car seat around and went on to endure nearly two decades of intermittent disc, back and neck issues.
This time, I swore it would be different.
Strength training my way out of back pain
That’s not to say I was entirely sedentary before my children started having children. Inspired by the athletes at the London Paralympics, I began running back in 2012. Their grit and obvious joy in participating made me realise that becoming fitter and healthier could happen for me, too. I just had to work at it.
By 2016, I had become fit enough to complete a half marathon in a respectable two hours. But while my cardiovascular health was good, my upper-body strength was still lacking, my back was constantly twinging and I had to ask other people to lift things into overhead lockers on aeroplanes. So, in late 2019, newly motivated by the imminent arrival of my first grandchild, I started doing some basic strength training at home.
I swiftly realised that arm reps using a piffling 1kg in each hand wouldn’t cut it, so I bought two sets of wrist weights and began running each day with 1kg strapped to each arm. When I arrived home, I did a further 30 minutes of arm and body conditioning using 2kg free weights.
Within months, I could see my efforts paying off. All the back pain that had plagued me for decades more or less melted away. After my first grandson arrived, I had more than enough energy for trips to the park, endlessly pushing him on swings before scooping him up to carry him home when he didn’t feel like walking.
After we welcomed a second grandson in 2022, then another last year, I knew I’d need to be stronger still, which was tricky: I’d just won a three-book contract to produce a series of cosy crime novels and was shackled to my desk for eight hours a day.
Going the extra 26 miles
In summer 2025, I secured a place in the 2026 London Marathon to raise funds for The Brain Tumour Charity. It meant a training rethink. Enthusiastically, I introduced press-ups into my routine but dropped them after developing a minor rib subluxation (when a rib becomes slightly dislocated). In February, after suffering a knee problem, I began using resistance bands on the advice of my osteopath to strengthen my legs while I watched TV in the evenings.
The free-weight dumbbells were increased to 2.5kg in each hand for a 30-minute morning session and I also incorporated a few hip flexor and other yoga-style stretches, including the dancer pose for leg strengthening and balance.
However, the biggest game changer was acquiring a weighted running vest. At first it felt impossibly heavy, as if an invisible hand was pushing me into the ground, but slowly, I added in more weights and am now packing 10lb – around 4.5kg – on my morning runs.
As marathon month approached, I embarked on longer runs round the countryside in Hampshire where I live, culminating in regular 18–22-milers.
The day I got lost on a route, then injured, and ended up hobbling down a dual carriageway in the sleet did make me question why I was putting myself through this, but even before the marathon training began, the personal benefits had been huge.
I’ve lowered my cholesterol and hammered off 1st 3lb of lockdown blubber, after seeing my weight soar to 10st 7lb in 2022. I now weigh just over nine stone.
Along with being strong enough to cut a whole hedge with a petrol trimmer, I’ve enjoyed another surprising benefit, too: feeling able, for the first time in my adult life, to wear sleeveless tops. I’m finally proud of my arms!
Best of all, I can do everything with my grandchildren that I’d hoped to. I used to dread lifting up my sons from their low-rise travel cot in case it triggered a bad back, but I can pick up my grandsons with ease now.
When they’re on their frog bikes and scooters, I can run beside them. I offer piggybacks up hills and hold them up to see animals at the safari park. On beach trips in the West Country, where they live, I adore scrabbling over the rocks with them or helping when they are in the sea.
Bringing the generations closer together
I’m convinced that being able to join in with children’s activities brings the generations closer and I’m not the only one. Carole Middleton, who has seven grandchildren, was recently quoted as saying: “I want to run down the hills, climb the trees and go through the tunnel at the playground. As long as I am able, that’s what I’ll be doing. I cook with them, muck around dancing, we go on bike rides.”
Being fitter and stronger gives you more confidence when caring for your grandchildren. If you know you can lift them, haul the equipment and keep up when they scamper off, trips out feel more doable.
My grandsons don’t see what I do with them as anything out of the ordinary – they think it’s just how we roll. But one of the proudest moments of my life was when I stopped on Tower Bridge, at the halfway mark of the London Marathon, to give them a hug because they’d come to support me.
I was being overtaken by a woman dressed as the poo emoji, so I’m not sure if they entirely understood what was going on. However, I’m hoping that seeing Grandma taking part in such a monumental physical challenge will inspire them – and remind their future selves that the older generations can smash it, too.