7 years ago, Steve Way was a 20-a-day ciggie puffing couch potato, weighing just under 105kgs. Last month, he spent 2 hours and 15 minutes running a marathon, and placed 10th in the Commonwealth Games.
What an amazing turnaround, and in my experience, not the usual result when someone draws a line in the sand and says “enough!”
Take Action
The message here is pretty clear though. We all have the capacity to change. You have to take action. Just something little, could lead to something big. But if you want your life to change, you have to DO something, and preferably do something today.
And whilst we’re on the subject of doing, could someone PLEASE DO SOMETHING about the weather. It’s been raining here pretty much every day for 3 weeks now – very unAustralian-and we are all over it! (sorry, I just looked out my window to witness yet another downpour)
Steve Way didn’t just say he’d like to run a marathon one day, and then keep on smoking and drinking himself to an early death, he changed his life by changing his habits. I’m not sure that seven years ago the marathon was even on his radar, but by changing his habits, he opened the door to an amazing opportunity.
I hope I don’t hear you saying you’re “too old” to change your habits. After the Commonwealth Games run, Way is now the holder of the over 40’s British marathon record, so he’d had plenty of time to develop some fairly well ingrained bad habits.
People Like You
In my work, I have the pleasure and privilege of seeing women go from literally not being able to run for more than a couple of minutes, to being able to comfortably and confidently run for 30-40 minutes a few times a week. Some of the women who join our Learn to Run group go on to run half marathons, marathons, and we’ve even had one Ironman! I received a lovely note from Bec after she completed the Ironman. Amongst other things she said…
“5 years ago I couldn’t run to my letter box without feeling like I would die. Last Saturday I completed my first ironman in New Zealand : 3.8km swim; 180km bike and 42.2 km run. I can’t believe I did it…. I felt the same sense of achievement after learning to run with you guys. I never thought I could do that and I did. Thank you so much for your help guidance and support over the years . You helped set me on a much healthier life path”.
Of course, like the marathon, the Ironman is not for everyone, and certainly not for me, but it’s pretty amazing to think that 5 years before her Ironman, Bec had 3 girls under the age of five, and whilst I know she could run a bit further than her letter box, five minutes would probably have been her limit.
To the outsider, Steve and Bec were just two average punters heading for a less than healthy middle age. Now they are both a long long way from that.
You won’t create a better version of yourself by sitting around thinking positive thoughts all day. Creating a better version of yourself means doing things differently, making what are sometimes brave, life-changing decisions, and never giving up.
If you’d like some help to Learn to Run, or you’d like to join one of our advanced interval training groups, drop us a line and we’ll get in touch.
More on Steve Way –  it’s well worth a read.
