Steve Way is a fantastic inspiration to us all. Yesterday he came 10th in the Commonwealth games Marathon, Breaking the british masters record time for over 40’s runners and setting a new PB at 2:15:16.
What makes stoves story so inspiring is back in 2007 he was 16 stone, a heavy smoker and drinker.
He is a self-confessed former “fat bloke”, he is on a quest to “inspire couch potatoes everywhere”. He had a fantastic race & for most of the first six miles he actually led the race.
“I just couldn’t have wished for a better day. I normally say something is second best to my wedding day, but this matches it. I’ve punched above my weight. I was even leading at 10km, which I thought might be a bit scary, but was really good fun.”
Qualifying for the commonwealth games
Steve’s story continues to be more inspiring when you here how he qualified for the games.
He qualified by being the third quickest englishman in this years London marathon behind Chris Thompson and three time Olympic Champion Mo Farah.
He hadn’t even specifically been training for the london Marathon and was using it as a warm up race before a 100km race two weeks later, and spent the night before sleeping in a camper van is his brothers driveway:
“I was using London as a training run for the UK 100km Championships in May. But about a week and a half before London I realised I’d got myself into what I thought was marathon personal-best shape. I’m not sure how I’d done it, but I decided to race instead.
“On the day I felt absolutely awesome, so I went off with an official 2:15 pacemaker and had a great run. As I was coming down The Mall, I had it all to myself. I was looking down towards the finishing line, there were huge crowds on either side and the tracking camera started following me.
“At that moment I knew I’d be on the telly and my mum would be watching. It was a spectacular moment and made all those months of training worthwhile.”
Steve talks about his life before running.
“The big change came when I was 33, in September 2007. I was at my heaviest, about 16-and-a-half stone, and I was smoking about 20 cigarettes a day. I’d have sleepless nights because of the coughing. It wasn’t pleasant.
“I’d be lying if I said I had an epiphany but I didn’t like the person I saw in the mirror in the morning and I do remember the emotion I felt, the feeling that ‘right, I’ve really got to do something, make some changes’.
“I wasn’t clinically depressed but I was just moseying from one day to the next. I had no goals in life. There was nothing going on to get me excited.
“I needed to find something I could focus all my attention on that was going to help me lose weight and keep me off the cigarettes. In order to bury your vices you need to find an equal and opposite addiction. You need to find a passion.”
Check out more info & an inspiring video about Steve:
