In March 2017 I had a medical with the Fire Service and I was advised to lose weight. I knew I was overweight, however I didn’t realise how overweight I was. I was 16 stone 8lbs.
I decided to join the council run gym in May 2017 to do something about losing some weight. Initially I could not manage 3 minutes on the treadmill, but over a period of time this increased. At the same time I stopped eating all the rubbish, Chocolate, Cake, Sweets, Biscuits, Crisps and also stopped grazing. By Christmas 2017 my weight was down to 12st 10lbs.
In February 2018 I entered the Spring 10k in Liverpool, and started to run outdoors around the local parks, by the time of the race in May 2018 my weight had dropped to 10st 7lbs. The race itself was a test of my fitness and on the day the temperature was 25 degrees C, I got the pacing wrong, went off too fast, but I completed it in a time of 1 hr 7 Mins and 21 Seconds.
At the same time I joined a local running club in Liverpool, Dockside Runners. This is a free running club. I met them for the first time at this race, and they welcomed me in, and when I sprinted to the finish line, they cheered me across.
Since May I have run 10k’s, managing to get my time down to 1 hr and 12 seconds, I have got a 5k pb of 28:16, I ran my first 10 Mile race and managed to finish in 1 hr 39 minutes 51 seconds.
In February 2019 I ran my first Half Marathon in Wrexham and finished in 2 hrs 25 minutes.
I then have run 2 more HM’s, Wirral HM(got a PB of 2 hrs 23 mins), and ended the year with the Conwy HM.
During a training run for the Conwy HM, I managed a PB for 10k with a time of 59:30, which was definitely a surprise.
In May 2019 I took part in the Miles For Mind, and achieved my target of 100 miles, and in July 2019 I took part in the Run Around The World, was part of Team North and the team overall were the 1st team to run around the world with days to spare. I managed 192.6km that month.
My goal for 2020 is to run a sub 2:20 HM, and I am on target to reach 100 parkruns and 25 volunteers in August.
I have entered 3 x HM, 2 x 10 Milers, 4 x 10K, 2 x 5 Milers for this year and looking for 1 more race in October.
Every month in the club, we vote for a ‘Runner of the Month’ and to my surprise I won this for September 2018. This for me is the greatest achievement, yes I have the medals from the races and they are great and bring back memories, as do my race bibs, but to be acknowledged by my fellow club members in this way, makes me want to work harder.
In the Club awards evening this year, I was a finalist in the Group 1 Runner of the Year and Runner of the Year.
At every race if anyone chats with me and asks about the club, I will tell them about the club, and if they are local and do not belong to a club, I will invite them to come to a session.
If anyone is in Liverpool either for work or on a course and need to have a run, Dockside Runners meet on a Tuesday Evening from 6:30pm, there are 4 groups based on your 5k time.
The links for the club are as follows;
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Big thanks to Neil for sharing his running story.
If you'd like to share your story, please contact us at info@runr.co.uk.
Happy running!
Team runr.
