The discovery that running could help her to lose weight AND beat depression was a turning point for Calderdale writer Rachel Cullen. Now she’s sharing her experiences with others

The answer to Rachel Cullen’s teenage body image and anxiety problems were mouldering away in her cellar – in the shape of a dusty pair of trainers.

Plagued with low self-esteem, seriously overweight and more unfit that an 18-year-old had any right to be, she made the momentous decision to lace them up and take the first tentative steps towards becoming a new person.

It was to be a far from simple or fast journey.

In fact, it wasn’t until many years later, after making another momentous decision - to run the 2011 London Marathon when her daughter was just seven-months-old - that Calderdale-born Rachel, now 39, finally achieved what she set out to do as a teenager, and more.

Rachel, who lives in Barkisland, has just published a memoir, Running For My Life, detailing the long and often painful struggle to overcome her inner demons.

It’s a remarkably frank and revealing volume in which she bares all about what it felt like to be the fat girl in the class at school; to battle low self-esteem, depression and a toxic relationship with food. She writes of everything from her years on Prozac, her marriage breakdown and her mother’s own struggles with bipolar disorder, to her fears facing parenthood and the final realisation that running could metaphorically ‘save her life’.

Writer and marathon runner Rachel Cullen

The book charts her discovery of running as a way, initially, to control her weight and, latterly, to gain a profound sense of wellbeing. Excerpts from her teenage diary pepper the book, offering a rare insight into the teenage mind.

Running, she says, has proved to be both her ‘medication and meditation’, and she hopes others can gain inspiration from her story.

Once the underdog, Rachel, explains how her younger self felt: “I had been brought up with a mum who suffered with manic depression, as it used to be called, and I do believe there is a nature to nurture aspect of it. Mum had her own issues about eating and had a very uncomfortable relationship with her body and heightened levels of self awareness. But in those days there just wasn’t the help available for her.

“I had been labelled as academic, studious and a geeky bookworm and in some way my inner self was lost. I started comfort eating and I just ballooned.”

Rachel was constantly judging herself and focussing on her imperfections. At 16-years-old she weighed more than 12 stones (today she’s four stones lighter) and hated what she saw in the mirror. She was invisible to the ‘alpha’ kids at school.

Even gaining a place to study law at Hull University didn’t improve her self-esteem. But it was at this point she began to run, determined that she’d transform herself for a new life and a new start as a student.

Her efforts were not in vain. Rachel achieved the slim figure she thought would solve her problems. But, unfortunately, the dramatic weight loss only served to highlight another physical imperfection and source of distress. “I had wonky boobs,” explained Rachel. “And losing weight made them more obvious. One was two cup sizes bigger than the other.”

The solution was breast surgery, but yet again Rachel discovered that her inner demons persisted. She’d achieved an outward facade of attractiveness, slimness and success, but happiness eluded her. At 21 she was diagnosed with clinical depression.

Rachel Cullen, author and marathon runner

To cut what is a full-length, novel-sized story short, Rachel ended up having to take time out of her studies but finally completed her degree and became a corporate lawyer. Running, and an enforced gym habit, kept her in her ‘size 10 power suit’ while she lived a corporate lifestyle of too much after-work drinking and erratic eating. She got married but realised that her heart wasn’t in it; decided to ditch the law in favour of becoming a personal trainer; set up her own personal training business and fell into another relationship.

Even while working to help others improve their health and fitness, Rachel admits that she wasn’t looking after herself as she should have been. Alcohol was still an important food group and she often skipped meals in favour of Soreen malt loaf. Running was an on–and–off part of her life but she says that it rarely brought her joy and often just felt like hard work. It was a means to an end. Her mood was bolstered by what she calls her ‘happy pills’.

It was only when Rachel faced motherhood that she finally found what it took to turn her life around. In a move that few can probably understand she decided to apply for a place for the London Marathon and run it when her daughter Tilly, now seven-years-old, was just seven-months-old.

She explained: “The essence of the story is that I set myself the goal because I needed a challenge that was enough to catapult me into motherhood. The mental health aspects of having a baby terrified me. I was at risk of post-natal depression and had been on Prozac for 12 years. I had to come off it. Entering the marathon was my way of committing myself to have the mental and physical strength to be a mother.”

And so when Tilly was only a few weeks old she began training, building up to short competitive runs and then longer races. It was to be a testing time for Rachel and her partner, Tilly’s father. As she explains: “He was a brilliant father but he just didn’t understand why I needed to do it. I wasn’t running when I met him and suddenly I’m training for a marathon.”

There are moments in the book when Rachel questions her own behaviour and asks if she’s being selfish, particularly when she’s gone for hours at a time to take part in a race. And, in the end, her relationship with Tilly’s father didn’t survive. But she had found a true love in running. “It’s freedom, it’s fresh air, there’s rhythm and meditation. It doesn’t matter how far you go or at what pace, “ she said.

Today Rachel is happily married to fellow running enthusiast Gav Dodd; she regularly runs marathons in just over three hours; take part in a Park Run with Tilly every Saturday; and has a new career, working part-time in the charitable sector. She also has time to write - a regular blog, rachelcullenwrites.wordpress.com. As she says: “My story isn’t over yet. Running has given me all sorts of amazing things and I’ve had some amazing experiences. I’m still writing.”

Running for My Life is published by Blink Publishing in paperback at £14.99.