Friday
I am sandwiched between West End star Michael Ball and national treasure Mary Berry on a platform in a garden in the middle of the Chelsea Flower Show. Michael is singing a track from his new album. Huge crowds watch on. We are filming our last BBC One Chelsea programme of the week. I observe him, smiling. All I can think of are glorious circles of life. I vividly remember watching Michael play Marius in Les Misérables on the West End stage in the 1980s. I was a teenager, wedged between my parents. Back home, our kitchen shelves were stuffed with Mary Berry cookbooks. I used to eat her fish pies and pasta dishes as a child. How funny to find myself, 40 years later, on stage between them both. How sad my father is no longer here. It would have made him smile too.
Saturday
A train to Suffolk for my seventh book event since my new memoir, Running on Air, was published in April. It’s about discovering running in my early forties, when I was sure I was already too old for marathons. Fifteen years later I have proved myself very wrong. More than 250 people have bought tickets to the Riverside cinema in Woodbridge to hear about the running journey that has not only taken me all over the world, across deserts and mountains, but has also taught me great lessons about navigating life. One of my best friends, also a Sophie, drives me there. We both laugh in surprise when we see my name in big, slightly wonky letters emblazoned across the front of the cinema:
MARIO GALAXY 130 400.
SOPHIE RAWORTH 730.
One of the Rs and the 3 are hanging at an angle. They look like they are about to fall off. “It’s the closest I’ll ever get to having my name up in lights,” I say laughing. Afterwards people queue for an hour as I sign their books. I love runners and their stories; their achievements, their goals, their passion for what is the most levelling of sports. It does not matter who you are, what you do, how old you are. We are all just runners.
Sunday
The May heatwave is here. I’m still in Suffolk and I need to run. I am training for a 100km race across the Alps later this year. It’s not easy to train for a mountain ultramarathon when you live in London. I set off at 7am from my friends’ house in Waldringfield on the River Deben, along a newly opened stretch of the King Charles III coastal path, and head back towards Woodbridge. This is a 19km run. I love exploring new footpaths. It clears my mind. This one, along the Martlesham creek, is particularly beautiful. I see almost no one. The cinema in Woodbridge is my halfway turning point. When I get there, I laugh again. My name has gone. A sci-fi drama, Rose of Nevada, has already taken my place. Fame is fleeting.
Monday
It’s a bank holiday. More running. More heat. And now I have thrown in some big hills. It’s the hottest day of the year so far. I set off early on a 28km run. The woodland in the Chilterns offers much-needed protection from the sun for the first few hours but, by the time I have climbed more than 2,000 feet, it’s 11am and almost 30°C. I have had to stop twice and knock on the doors of strangers to ask politely if they could refill my water bottles. I have no idea if I will be able to finish this alpine race in the summer. The training is already so hard. But over the years, running has taught me that is it is always worth trying. It turns out my body is so much stronger than my mind allows me to believe.
Tuesday
Back to reality. After a week of flowers and Chelsea and books and running, I arrive back at Broadcasting House at Oxford Circus and settle down in my chair for my normal job on the BBC’s News at Six. The air-conditioned newsroom, on what is yet another day of record-breaking May temperatures, is glorious. The extreme heat is the lead story. I write cues and watch pictures being sent back to us from a helicopter over 35.1°C London, looking for the best images to use in the headlines. When I walk into the studio with 15 minutes to go, it is so cold I ask the floor manager to turn the air con down.
Wednesday
Heat dominates the day again, so the newsroom is a cool refuge after a sweaty tube journey to work. This weekend I’m off to the Hay festival where I will swap roles with my great friend and colleague, Jeremy Bowen. He will be asking me the questions for a change. I’ve spent my whole career telling other people the news. I’m a private person and it’s strange to have the spotlight turned now so firmly on me. But for years I said I’d like to write a book so that I could have a launch party and go to book festivals. Finally, it is mission accomplished.
