About Me
Hi! I’m Tim Isaac, a 42-year-old civil servant living in Exeter, Devon. For most of my life I’ve been very overweight (the word ‘morbidly’ has been used once or twice). Even as a kid I was fat, and with that came a massive dislike of exercise. Whether it was football, atheltics, rugby or anything else – it was for other people, not for me.
I certainly wasn’t a fan of running. At secondary school I only ever completed one cross-country run during my entire time there. That actually took a surprising amount of skill on my part considering the school’s love of those runs. Then for most of my adult life I viewed people who voluntarily went jogging as virtually certifiable.
Between the ages of 19 and 39 I was doing zero exercise and smoking 20-a-day. At my heaviest ever I weighed 18 1/2 stone (260lbs/118kg), putting me comfortably into the Extremely Obese category.
Making a change
Then in 2017 I gave up smoking, and a few months later I went on a diet and started to go to the gym. I was 40-years-old the first time I ever ran a mile non-stop (including when I was at school), and it nearly killed me.
I’m now around seven stone down from that maximum weight and have completely transformed my physical fitness. However, until the first lockdown I still hadn’t done a huge amount of running – just 10 or 15 minutes on a treadmill a couple of times a week as a warmup at the gym. But with gyms closed and keen to make sure I didn’t slip back into old habits, I put on my trainers and hit the pavements!
My progress has been slow but I have gradually improved. On my first outdoor run in March 2020 I didn’t even manage a kilometre without slowing down to walk for a bit, but now I’m able to make it to the 10-mile mark without stopping. I’m certainly not going to beat any speed records and decades of inactivity does make progress tough, but I’ve decided 2021 is time to really challenge myself.
The Challenge
I’ve decided to try and run 1,000 miles between January 1st and December 31st to raise money for Diabetes UK and AKT. That’s further than I’ve run in my entire life combined up until this point. It’s going to be tough, but barring accident or illness, I’m determined to make it.
So I will be pounding those pavements and I’ve even signed up for my first half marathon in May! To see how far I’ve gotten so far, you can head over the runs log, and if you’d like to show your support, I’d be exceedingly grateful for anything you can afford. You can donate over at Virgin Money Giving.
If you’d like to know more about me or the challenge, feel free to contact me by email at: [email protected]