'What about your knees!' - Sophie Raworth's new book debunks this age-old running concern with an orthopaedic surgeon

Those who want to pull on their running shoes and start after a certain age are often met with scepticism, in the form of an assumption and a question: running is bad for your knees - are you sure you don't want to do something else?

As well-meaning as it might be, it put a damper on even the most dedicated new runner's ambitions.

Sophie Raworth, 57, has completed several marathons (including all World Major Marathons) and ultra-marathons (including the infamous Marathon des Sables in the Sahara Desert) in the last few years, since she took up running at 42. Even she hasn't managed to avoid this concern.

“So many people have said to me, ‘What about your knees?’” Sophie tells me in an exclusive interview with woman&home, where we spoke about her running journey as a whole and how she regained her confidence after an injury.

The topic of running and knee health is one Sophie addresses head-on in her book, Running on Air: From BBC Headlines to Life-Changing Finish Lines, as she draws on research done by Professor Alister Hart, an orthopaedic surgeon she met in 2020. As a hip replacement specialist, Dr Hart has been carrying out research in this area for six years. He is also especially interested in the impact of running on middle-aged runners and how exercise can help prevent osteoporosis.

In the book, Sophie flags a study using the MRI scans of 81 first-time marathon runners in their forties, six months before the 2017 London Marathon and again two weeks after the event. Half of the runners were scanned again six months later.

There was no deterioration in joints, and the bones of some runners had improved, with positive changes in the bone marrow and cartilage seen for at least six months after the marathon.

“Changes in the bone marrow that had been seen on the first scans, often a sign of pre-arthritis, had completely vanished,” Sophie tells me of the study results.

“There are people who can't run, especially if they have existing injuries, but generally speaking, impact sports are good for your bones. Motion is lotion, [Dr Hart] keeps telling me, use it or lose it," she says.

"The more a joint is used, the stronger it makes the bone and muscle around it. I hope that keeps me going for the next couple of decades because I want to keep running in my seventies like Jacquie Millet, whom I write about in the book. She began running when she was 57 and has completed so many marathons. She is extraordinary," she says.

Sophie Raworth puts her injury, a "rare kind of stress fracture", down to overtraining while wearing carbon-plated running shoes, a particularly rigid type of trainer designed for speed.

“I had experienced minor injuries with tendons or muscles before, but I could cycle while I recovered. With this bone injury, a stress fracture, I couldn’t do anything. Using crutches and getting the tube to work every day became my daily challenge.”

Her experience was mentally taxing but ultimately temporary. “You have to believe it will be all right at the end, which thankfully it was,” says Sophie, who returned to race running last year and completed the Sydney Marathon in under four hours.

“I am more relaxed about my running since the injury. I'm not trying to break any records. I just love being out there and being able to do it. That matters to me more than anything.”