Training for the Marathon gives me nightmares, admits Dame Kelly Holmes

Double Olympic gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes has spoken about the “nightmare” of training for her first London Marathon.

Dame Kelly, 45, who won gold medals in the 800m and 1,500m at the 2004 Athens Olympics, said preparing for the race on April 24 had been “bloody hard”.

“You want the truth? [Training] is really hard, bloody hard. I have had nightmares about it. When I was first going to do it — I only decided in January — people were like, ‘Oh that will be easy for you.’ It’s not,” she said.

“I have been retired from international sport for 11 years … I was always ‘do a fast run, recover, do another, it’s over.’ I was used to doing short distances. Now you have to start thinking about what drink to prepare and eating. Psychologically, you just think ‘oh God, I have a 22-miler coming up this weekend.’ All I can think about today is I have to run 22 miles.”

She aims to raise £250,000 for several charities, including mental health organisation Mind. Dame Kelly, who has suffered from depression, said the charity had given her an opportunity to speak out about the “taboo” subject.

“I had depression and got to a point where self-harm was my release,” she said. “I am someone in the public eye, I have been in the military for 10 years, I have been an international athlete. I am driven and confident, but actually I am human as well. And you never know when things might happen.”

She said the London Games had helped raise the profile of women in sport. “The 2012 Olympics made a huge difference … Look at all the women who did so well then and are now household names … That’s the Olympic legacy.”

Her charity, The Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, has just announced it will expand over the next four years to reach 8,300 young people in some of London’s most deprived areas. The Trust uses high-profile athletes to use sport to help young, jobless people into education or employment.

Dame Kelly said she launched the charity in 2008 to help those who, like her, came from difficult backgrounds, were not academic and needed someone to believe in them.

“I was the same as a lot of people — council estate, mixed family, I didn’t know my dad, mum brought me up. Wasn’t academic at school at all. I was very fortunate that I had a PE teacher who saw something in me.

“It is having that one person that believes in you. Someone who has connected with you.”