u/Oh-My-Josh-

Did my 3rd Mens Open yesterday. Whilst my times may not be sexy I’m really happy with myself that I’ve been able to improve significantly each time despite life getting more challenging.

I know what people mean when they say dad strength now. It’s the ability to just do hard things and keep moving forward because it’s bigger than just yourself now and I think that definitely reflects in my race performances.

By the time of Hyrox next year I will be a dad of 2, maybe I’ll get even stronger as a result. Here’s to sub 70 in a year from now!

Also - regarding what helped me the most in training - it was running. Run a lot of easy miles. As much as your legs/feet will safely allow. Yesterday it wasn’t just the running splits that got faster, my ability to enter and exit stations feeling fresh was a direct result of building a good enough engine.

I’m probably not a “beginner” runner anymore, but I’m posting this here because not too long ago, I was.

3 months ago, I was overweight. My cholesterol and other health markers were alarmingly poor and my heart was working overtime if I ran anything faster than 8:00/km. My son had just turned 1 and we had another baby on the way.
Everything changed after I read a quote that hit me like a truck:: “Every parent would die for their kids, but how many would live for them?”
After I read that, something in me shifted. Over the next 3 months, I poured everything I had into becoming the best version of myself for my family. There were a lot of early mornings, late nights, setbacks, doubts, and plenty of blood sweat and tears.
I wish I could tell you the path to becoming your best self is full of sunshine and rainbows, but it isn’t. You’ll have days where you don’t want to get out and run. You’ll have days where you desperately want to run, but your body needs rest.
You’ll have to make difficult choices and stay disciplined when motivation disappears.
But if you keep showing up, keep putting one foot in front of the other and trust the process, you’ll eventually look back and realise just how far you’ve come. I don’t even recognise the person I was 3 months ago anymore.

I thought about all of this as I was approaching the finish line of my first half marathon this weekend. Having succumbed to the realisation I wasn’t going to hit my sub 1:40 time goal, I immediately felt disappointed and felt as though I had let myself and my family and friends down. With 300m to go, I remembered why I was doing this in the first place. I called out to my friend who was running with me and shouted “it was never about running sub 1:40!” and nothing could wipe the smile off our faces as we crossed the finish line.

Running didn’t just improve my fitness. It helped save my life