The darkish facet of Joe Wicks: I could not imagine what I used to be listening to, writes BRYONY GORDON. This is why he ought to know higher

Of all the people on the starting line of the London Marathon this weekend – from the man dressed as a rhinoceros to the person running with a washing machine on their back – the participant you have to feel most sorry for is Daddy Pig.

It’s not just the weighty, stiflingly hot costume he will have to run the 26.2 miles in, but the human he’s going to have to run it with – Joe Wicks, aka The Body Coach.

Daddy Pig is running for The National Deaf Children’s Society, after it was revealed in a recent episode of Peppa Pig that his son George is partially deaf. It’s a lovely moment for the charity, and for families everywhere hoping to increase understanding of childhood deafness, which affects more than 54,000 young people in the UK.

What a shame, then, that Wicks, Daddy Pig’s trainer, has dashed in and made it all about himself. This week he gave a fantastically, well, tone deaf interview to the Running Channel about his experiences running marathons.

In a clip that’s since been deleted from YouTube – but which can never be deleted from the internet, as is the unfortunate case with these things – Wicks boasted about the time he casually ran 26.2 miles for a bit of fun.

‘I ran a marathon with no water, no toilet breaks and no food, so I don’t think we really need as much as we are told,’ said Wicks, in answer to a question about fuelling. ‘The average runner, if you had a bowl of porridge and a banana, you are going to get round.’

You can just imagine how well this advice went down in social media land: about as well as a measly cup of cold porridge before a 42km run.

Running influencers risked serious injury by tripping over each other to post their responses to the 40 year old.

‘Good god (9 time marathoner here) what a bloody stupid thing to actually leave Joe’s mouth!’ wrote one runner on X. ‘Use your platform in a safe way Joe. You need to fuel and hydrate correctly to complete a marathon.’

Indeed, so intense was the backlash the Running Channel took the unusual decision to release a statement condemning his remarks. ‘In an earlier version of this video, there was some discussion about nutrition, specifically around marathons, which didn’t align with advice that we would give, and wasn’t challenged enough in the discussion. We have since removed that short section to avoid any confusion, and in response to your feedback.’

Wicks also posted a video, backtracking on his words and claiming – as is the way for any celebrity caught short – that he was taken out of context.

But Wicks’ terrible marathon advice is only symptomatic of a wider problem: the ‘bro-ification’ of running, where a run doesn’t count unless you’ve achieved negative splits (running the second half faster than the first half of a race) – and logged it on the tracking app Strava and all your social media.

Then there are those increasingly insane celebrity challenges, which have had to get longer and longer to have any impact as charity fundraisers. Whereas once a hapless kids TV presenter would just have to sit in a bath full of baked beans to get the public to reach into their pockets and donate, now they have to do 18 ultra-marathons in a row, upside down, walking on their hands, to get anybody’s attention.

And so we find ourselves at a point in time where people who do nothing more strenuous than sitting on their behinds, scrolling on social media, start to think a marathon is a walk in the park.

But it’s worth reminding the likes of Joe Wicks that according to Greek legend, the first person ever to run 26.2 miles was Pheidippides, a messenger who jogged to Athens from the battlefields of Marathon to announce victory, whereupon he promptly collapsed and died.

Sure, marathons have come a long way since 490BC – they have water stations, not to mention spectators handing you sweets – but as someone who hopes to finish her fourth London Marathon this weekend, I can tell you they’re not easy. In fact, the hardness is kind of the point.

Ten years ago I found running for the bus difficult and I’d never have started jogging at all were it not for inclusive events like Parkrun, which encourage people of all ages and abilities to get out and move for 5km every Saturday morning.

So it’s hugely disappointing to hear that Nike hijacked several Parkruns last weekend, with a guerrilla advertising campaign aimed at shaming many of the participants: ‘You didn’t come all this way for a walk in the park’ was the patronising slogan. The company was forced to remove similar adverts which read ‘Runners welcome, walkers tolerated’, which it posted in Boston ahead of the US city’s marathon on Monday.

In an increasingly sedentary world, with over a quarter of Brits doing less than 30 minutes of exercise a week, huge companies such as Nike should be doing more than simply tolerating people who have bothered to get up and move.

And as for Joe Wicks, the nation’s self-styled PE teacher … well, he should know better than to be so casually dismissive and ill-informed about what it takes to do a marathon, whether walking, running, or a combination of the two.

Still, I suppose there’s one upside to all this: on Sunday, when I inevitably hit the wall at mile 20, I can remind myself that, however hard it feels, at least I’m not having to run it dehydrated and starving, alongside Joe Wicks.

Separate beds for Harry and Zoe

What in the name of 1950 is this? Why, it’s the surprisingly retro romance between Harry Styles and Zoe Kravitz, who has been spotted walking around London with a giant diamond ring on her engagement finger.

According to reports, the couple are sleeping in separate beds while in the capital, with Styles staying at his Hampstead home, and Kravitz at a luxury hotel.

Are they saving themselves for marriage? If anyone can bring back old-style courting, then surely it’s Harry Styles.

How sad to read that teens and 20-somethings are so anxious, a quarter of them don’t feel able to shake hands with others, while a third struggle to look people in the eye during conversations. I remember being painfully shy at that age – but thank goodness I was encouraged to push through. A diagnosis of anxiety shouldn’t be a reason to limit your life, but a moment to find some tools to help you live a full one.

The Devil hasn’t aged a day 

Has anyone else been fascinated by photos from the promo trail of The Devil Wears Prada 2? The stars don’t seem to have aged a day since the first film was released 20 years ago – if anything, they all look younger. I don’t know if the devil does actually wear Prada, but these Hollywood A-listers clearly all have withered portraits in their attics.

Hollywood’s full of ‘mean boys’

In a fresh lawsuit against director Justin Baldoni, actress Blake Lively claims that being branded a ‘mean girl’ has cost her nearly $300million (£222million) in reputational damage.

I don’t have any insider information about Lively, but I do know Hollywood must be full to the brim of tricky men whose careers remain unchallenged by their behaviour. How depressing that, in the year 2026, not being nice as pie is still the worst thing you can level at a woman.

Missing your clothes Madonna? Try Oxfam

Poor Madonna has had her clothes stolen, after performing alongside Sabrina Carpenter at the Coachella festival in California last weekend. The superstar appeared in the same corset and jacket she wore when she last appeared at the festival 20 years ago, but unfortunately they’ve since gone missing.

‘These aren’t just clothes, they’re part of my history,’ she wrote on social media. ‘Other archival items from the same era went missing as well.’

If any clothing from my ‘archival history’ went walkies, I’d know exactly where to find it – in a bin bag at Oxfam.