MUSCLE NAN!

Renée Landers, 72, was in her 60s when she lifted her first dumb-bell

- ELAINE HAYWARD, JADE BEECROFT

After putting my three-month-old son Garrett down for his nap, I glanced at the clock, then at my trainers by the front door. I wondered if I could squeeze in months pregnant. Leaving a friend to watch my son, I dashed out.

Then, two miles in, I hurt myself. I yelped, as an excruciating pain flashed across my lower back. Somehow, I managed to hobble the two-mile journey back home.

I was petite, at 5ft 2in, and I’d always been fit and healthy. Although I’d had niggling back pain for a few years, I’d ignored it but now the pain wouldn’t go away. I went to my GP and, although he didn’t know the exact cause, he advised me to stop running. Disappointed, I switched to walking and aerobics to keep fit. When Garrett was two, his dad and I divorced, and I became a busy single mum.

Juggling childcare with running my own building consultancy business, I still kept up my fitness, but missed going for runs. During the next two decades, as Garrett grew up and became an adult himself, Nothing helped, and some days I could hardly walk from the pain.

Finally, at 57, I was diagnosed with spondylolisthesis, a condition where multiple vertebrae in your spine slip forward. Shortly afterwards, in October 2009, I had eight-hour surgery, which fused two vertebrae together with titanium. I was still warned off running, but the operation gave me a new lease of life. Garrett had just become a dad, and I wanted to be an active gran.

Before the operation, I'd been a gym regular and when I returned, after six months of physio, my back pain had completely disappeared. Then, a year later, nearing my 60th birthday and going through the menopause, I went to see my doctor, who prescribed me HRT.