This is a truly inspirational story of a British runner weighing 16 stone (224 pounds), who decided to train for the marathon at the Beijing Olympics! Alex Vero originally started running to lose weight and found that he enjoyed it.
He describes himself as a “heavy-drinking, asthmatic, smoking slob” in the beginning and embarked on an amazing training program in order to reach his goal. While he has decided not to go as far as Beijing, his story is still compelling.
Alex’s journey includes entries in the London Marathon and even the Marathon des Sable. However his story is also one of battles with injuries such as shin splints, muscle tears in the hip and even spinal surgery. It is also an example of just what an overweight runner can achieve.
He is making a documentary as part of the project which also aims to compare the amazing success of Ethiopian and Kenyan marathon runners with the decline of British runners. Having seen a Sunday morning road race in the dust, fumes and traffic of Addis Ababa, I’m particularly interested in this aspect of the project. Judging by the pilot, the film will be well worth watching.
4 responses so far ↓
1 KervensJ // Jul 31, 2008 at 7:42 am
Inspirational video!!!!
2 pchieng // Jan 29, 2009 at 12:28 pm
A truly inspirational story and video. It actually makes me want to run right now!
3 Rosemary S // Jan 30, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Hi all
Was dreading attempting week 2 as I could not imagine myself running a full 3 minutes, after huffing and puffing in week 1. Well today was day one of week 2 and I did it and it was not so bad, praying week 3 will be horribly dreadful.
Well it feels like when runnig that all 166 pounds is just to much to bear. Must say thoughlooking forward to improved fitness and weightloss in the coming months
4 beginrunning // Jan 31, 2012 at 3:17 pm
@ Rosemary S – Sounds like your making great progress and you’re right – there’s lots to look forward to!
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