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If you have seen the glamorous pictures of Pippa Middleton rubbing shoulders with David Beckham in Wimbledon’s Royal enclosure last week, you would be surprised to hear that, less than two weeks previous, Pippa was taking on one of the toughest marathons in the word.
The Duchess of Cambridge’s younger sister ran the gruelling Tusk Trust’s Safaricom Marathonin Kenya last month in an impressive 3hrs 56mins. Alongside 1,200 other runners, Middleton took on the tough 26.2-mile route through Kenya’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in stifling temperatures of up to 30 degrees.
While the Duchess’s younger sister may be used to the finer things in life, gaining her place on Centre Court, without slumming it in the infamous Wimbledon Queue, Pippa is no stranger to adversity – or a rigorous training plan. Not only proving her immense stamina as she took home 30th in the Kenyan marathon last month, Middleton also completed the 54-mile London to Brighton bike ride just a week before, to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.
“I decided that a marathon was a ‘life box’ that needed ticking and this year was my time,” Middleton told HELLO! magazine, “despite it being one of the toughest in the world, with temperatures rising to more than 30 degrees at an altitude of 5,550ft and with the possibility of bumping into lions or rhinos.”
In an exclusive with HELLO! magazine, Middleton said that she found the challenge exhausting and emotional. “I was exhausted. My eyes welled up with tears,” she said. “It was tough – tougher than anything I’d been faced with before and required every inch of my energy, stamina and stubbornness.”
And so it appears that Pippa’s killer figure, which stole the limelight at the Royal Wedding – as she wowed thousands in her figure-hugging dress – is not, in fact, a royal fluke. Pippa, like us, is a runner, and a decent one at that.