Keep on running!
Sara Cox is picking up the baton from her Bolton compatriots Paddy McGuinness and Vernon Kay, aiming to raise millions for Radio 2’s Children in Need Challenge
Sara’s Great Northern Marathon Challenge for Children in Need will be covered from 6.30am Monday-Friday on Radio 2 and on Friday at 7.00pm on BBC One. Add these to your collection now
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“We’ve come a long way,” says Paddy McGuinness, and as he speaks I’m admiring our surroundings, a fancy meeting room with mahogany furniture in a smart part of central London. There are oil paintings on the walls of some very posh folk from the 18th century looking down on us. Paddy’s referring to the fact that he, Sara Cox sitting next to him, Vernon Kay across the table, and I were all born in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton in Greater Manchester and all of us haven’t done too badly so far in life. “I guarantee you there’s a few people on these walls who are from the North West,” says Vernon. “They’ll have come down south over the years and done well.”
Clive Myrie. Rebecca Naen
We decide to play a game and name other prominent Boltonians. “Robert Shaw,” says Paddy, of the actor who played the shark-obsessed fisherman in Jaws. I offer up Sir Ian McKellen, who went to school in Bolton, and the actress Maxine Peake. “I used to work with Maxine at Horwich Leisure Centre,” says Paddy. “I did my A-level theatre studies with her,” says Sara.
I wonder aloud that there must have been something in Bolton’s drinking water that’s resulted in this little part of Britain, at the foot of the Pennines, turning out so much talent. “We all know what a great working-class town Bolton is,” says Vernon. “It’s a town full of grafters. And we’re honest with ourselves, we have no illusions about what or who we are, and the public appreciates that.”
We’ve come together to talk about this year’s Radio 2 Children in Need appeal, and Sara’s gargantuan quest to raise lots of money. Her Great Northern Marathon Challenge will involve walking or jogging the equivalent of five marathons (roughly 135 miles) in five days. “It’s a huge responsibility and a massive privilege, but it’s quite frightening as well, and I just want to do it as best as I can,” she says.
It’s a massive privilege, but it’s quite frightening as well…
Sara Cox
Paddy and Vernon nod in approval; over the years it’s become a bit of a thing for Radio 2 presenters to take on a tough assignment for CiN. Last year Paddy raised an incredible £10.3 million with his Ultra Endurance Cycle Challenge, crossing three nations and eight counties on a Raleigh Chopper. The year before, Vernon raised £6 million with his Ultra UltraMarathon Challenge, travelling by foot from Leicester to Bolton in just four days, clocking up 115 miles.
Sara’s start line is in the Kielder Forest on the Scottish Borders, and she’ll finish, quite fittingly, in Pudsey in Leeds. “Oh dear. I’ve got to go through Yorkshire, and I’ve spent a lot of my career gently taking the mickey out of Yorkshire,” she laughs. “But they’ve assured me they’ll let me in. You know what it’s like as a northerner. A southerner couldn’t take the mickey, no way, but a Lancastrian can, and get away with it, so it’s all good fun.”
What Sara’s really worried about aren’t the good people of Yorkshire, but what she describes as a dodgy knee. “I came off a racehorse in 2013 and that’s when I damaged it. I do have to look after it, and I do overthink things a lot, so in my head this can’t be the big knee challenge. I’ve just got to trust in the experts who tell me it’s going to be fine. But if there’s a problem, Clive, will you come and give me a piggyback?”
Sara Cox, Paddy McGuinness, & Vernon Kay. Rachel Louise Brown
We all laugh. However, I sense she’s quite nervous about the whole endeavour, not just her knee. Typical of the self-effacing Boltonian that she is, it’s the fuss people are making in the build-up to the challenge that she can do without. She just wants to get her head down, train and perform. “Paddy’s told me to ignore all the noise and just crack on with it. But the scrutiny and weight of expectation are quite overwhelming. The challenge is the first thing I think about in the morning, and the last thing I think about at night. I’m dreaming about it most nights in some form. It’s all-consuming, it’s massive.”
I suggest the more she trains, the more confident she’ll get as the big day draws near. “I’ve just got to be as mentally prepared and physically fit as I can, but it’s tricky trying to weave in the training in a busy schedule. Most days I’ll either go for a run or walk or go strength training at the gym. But it’s hard. The other day
I took the dog with me for a run and it’s a flat- coated retriever that loves water, so it kept buggering off for a splash around, which meant I could get a couple of minutes for a breather as we tried to entice the dog out of the pond.”
The rule for Radio 2 seems to be that when it comes to Children in Need, the tougher the challenge, the easier it will be to get people to open their wallets. “It’s got to be hard to get people to donate,” says Sara. “They want to see that you’re really being challenged. But I also think as a woman it’s harder, because we’re perhaps not taught as girls to believe in ourselves the way boys are, and I’ve had to build up my confidence as much as my aerobic fitness for this. So much of the battle is in my head, because I put a lot of pressure on myself to not let people down, and that’s what was causing me to wake up in the middle of the night. Things are much better now. I’m now feeling more positive and confident. I just want to do a good job and finish.”
Paddy McGuinness on his Chopper in 2024.
Sara says that when the boss of Radio 2 approached her about the challenge, she told her she wanted a woman to “complete the Bolton triangle”, with Paddy and Vernon having done their bit. “And short of popping a wig on Mark Radcliffe, that meant it had to be me,” she laughs. “I do feel I’m representing women of a certain age in taking this on. I’ve actually had messages to that effect after posting images of me in the gym working out.
“In my head I look like a 20-year-old cheerleader, but in the clips, I look like a 50-year-old woman working out, slightly sweaty and tired. And some women have got in touch to say they weren’t going to go out for a little run, but now they are, or they’re going to start getting back into the gym. And that’s great as a little side effect of all this. I’m definitely representing middle-aged women.”
Sara is a proud ambassador for the north of England, but feels she’s had to prove herself in the media jungle down south. “I’ve always wanted to show that, just because I’ve got a northern accent, it doesn’t mean I’m thick. I was raised by a hard-working mother, and I have a strong work ethic and now more people know me, I feel less of a need to prove myself.
It does have a massive, long-lasting effect on you
Vernon Kay
“But for young people I think it’s still a little difficult if you’re from a working-class background and your family can’t support you while you work for free to get your foot in the door. A lot of kids just don’t have the means. I was lucky I came through in the 90s, when there was just starting to be more of an appetite for a regional accent, with people like Terry Christian. Northern representation is so much better now. Certainly, on Radio 2 we’ve got it covered, haven’t we!” and with that she lets out a huge laugh.
It’s 45 years since fundraising for Children in Need began, and Sara says it’s lovely to be involved in the anniversary. “I watched the show as a kid, and it was always a huge night with Terry [Wogan]. I’m hoping even more people will support it this year because of the birthday. The lives they’ve changed, the kids they’ve helped over more than four decades – it’s just beyond comprehension, and it’s such a huge honour to be asked to get involved. I suppose that’s why I have to take a breath every now and again realising the responsibility. I’m excited about people coming out, cheering us on and keeping us going; I think it’s going to be quite something getting that lift and I’m hoping people will carry me along.”
Sara’s fellow Boltonians will both be on duty presenting the appeal show for Children in Need on BBC One on 14 November, and they both believe her life will be changed by the experience of the challenge. “There are some great people out there,” says Vernon. “As you’re running and people come up to you, you realise why you’re doing it. There are probably half a dozen people, if not more, who came up to me, who have passed now because they had terminal cancer.”
Vernon Kay completes his Children in Need challenge in Bolton in 2023.
His eyes begin welling up. “It gets me. For a brief 10 minutes they came and enjoyed the occasion and the moment of being in that spotlight running with me and the team, where all eyes were on them. People would just come up and say they’d been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, and they thought they’d join in the run because they might not be able to do it next time. And parents who’d lost children to disease. Even now, two years on, I feel so sorry for those people. I can remember the face of every single person who told me a heartfelt story about either themselves or a family member. It’s so powerful.” His voice quivers a little and I can see just how deeply he has been affected by taking part in his challenge. He agrees: “It does have a massive, fundamental, long-lasting impact on you. At the end of the day I went for a jog, Paddy went for a bike ride, and we raised a lot of money for charity. And it’s something as simple as that that people invest in, and it’s huge. But the whole experience made me realise that no matter how bad a hand you think life has dealt you, there is always someone else in a worse position.”
Paddy feels the same way about his Children in Need bike ride last year. “It really was a privilege seeing communities coming out and kids and pensioners putting a couple of quid in a bucket for charity. It sounds a bit shmaltzy, but I really felt love on the street. I just thought, wow, this country, you don’t realise how good it is, what’s on your doorstep. This country is filled with more good people than bad.
“At the end of every day I used to get into an ice bath and have a physio session, sleep, wake up, same again. Looking back on it, I realise, my God, it was brutal, but in the moment I was so energised by the good will of everyone, I didn’t feel the pain.”
It sounds a bit shmaltzy, but I really felt love on the street
Paddy McGuinness
Paddy says he understands if Sara is feeling daunted by the challenge. “Sometimes I’ll chat to her, and she’ll say, ‘I’m not feeling it today,’ and I say to her, ‘Trust me, when you start this, it will be the best thing you’ve ever done.’ Sara’s in for a treat. She doesn’t realise it now, but when she’s doing the challenge, and she sees that love and positivity – it was life-changing for me.”
I’m taken aback by how meaningful the Children in Need Challenges have been for Vernon and Paddy, not least because they were able to raise millions of pounds for charity. The generosity is amazing, says Paddy. “As I was cycling along, a bloke wanted to do a bit of the journey with me and was riding the same bike. Then he finished and off he went and I later found out he’d donated £250,000!”
It’s almost time for us all to say goodbye and for Sara to get back to her training. “All the listeners in the Radio 2 family get very excited about these challenges now,” she says, “and they know their job is to just tune in and send in messages encouraging people who see me out running to join in, give me a wave, honk their horns and try and donate some money. I’m just going to give it as much welly as I can!” Spoken like a true Boltonian.
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For information on how to donate by text or online to support’s Sara’s challenge, please visit bbc.co.uk/sara
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