RUNNERS
Bonnie the brave
Lucy Fry talks to Bonnie Norris about how running aided her recovery from bulimia and ultimately led her to become the youngest British woman ever to climb Everest…
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My problems with food began at 13, when I started thinking that I was fat. My solution was
simple: eat a lot less. At first, it seemed easy to starve myself all day until dinner and save my lunch money to buy clothes at the weekend instead. “Unsurprisingly, I lost a lot of weight. I used to get the shakes, and I definitely felt weak, but I was never thin to the point where anybody said you look underweight. I’d always been a skinny child so I guess everyone thought I would be a skinny adult.
Running relief “For a while I thought I was happy – I felt good in my clothes and got lots of compliments – but gradually it became harder and harder to diet. When I was 14, I began taking diet pills. They totally didn’t work and I became even more frustrated with dieting. That’s when the bulimia started. I remember the first time I made myself sick, I was 15, and I thought I had found the secret to the whole world. Now I could eat normally and not get fat. “But, in a matter of months, being sick
went from being something really great to being something that I was completely disgusted by. Yet, once I properly realised I didn’t want to be sick all the time, I was already addicted to it. And I was getting really unhealthy too, eating junk food all the time. There seemed no point in eating healthy food because I was going to chuck it up. “I didn’t know how to get out of it. I
remember there was a half term week and I was just at home throwing up, eating, throwing up, eating. I remember waking up one morning and thinking: ‘I
48 ■ RUNNING FREE
don’t know how I’ll get through the day, I don’t want to fight this thing in my head any more… Please let me be normal. Let me not binge as soon as I eat one chocolate or one biscuit.’ “And that’s what it happened: out of
the corner of my eye I noticed our old treadmill tucked away in the study. Nobody ever used it and I’d never been on it, but for some reason I thought: ‘what’s the harm in going on a little run?’ “I managed 30 seconds, couldn’t even
finish a minute, and yet something clicked. I decided that every time I wanted to be sick I would go on the treadmill. And I found that, by the time I had finished running, I no longer felt the need to eat rubbish because of the endorphin release. The relief was instant, like making myself sick, but obviously a lot healthier. Soon I found I actually wanted to eat breakfast so that I could go on a run.
Climbing high “Gradually, my perspective changed. It went from ‘I want to be thin,’ to ‘I want to be healthy so I can run, as running makes me really happy.’ “I did relapse, but it became less and
less frequent, until the bulimia went away completely. Mentally, the running was such a good boost that I stuck at it. It made me feel strong in my head, which meant I thought: ‘I don’t need to listen to that devil on my shoulder. I can trust myself to be alone in my own thoughts.’ “I started running outside and loved it. Soon I wanted a challenge, something to aim for with my running. So I did some half marathons, my first one when I was 18. I also did lots of 20-mile trail races, and then, in 2008, I did the London Marathon.
“Later that year, I picked up Bear
Grylls’ book about climbing Everest and a seed was sewn. I went to a talk in London by two guys who had climbed Everest. I still don’t know why but it completely consumed all my thoughts. I phoned some British Mountain Guides asking them what I needed to do, how I should learn to climb. And that was that. “It took me a year of expeditions (two to the Alps, one to the Himalayas and lots to the Lake District and Wales) to get fit and ready for the climb but, at 21, I became the youngest woman to climb Manaslu, in Nepal and, at 22, the youngest British woman to climb Everest. They are great achievements, yes, but actually that first 30 second run on that dusty old treadmill was where it all started, and that’s something I’ll never forget.” ■ For more details visit
www.bonitanorris.com
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