{"id":4530,"date":"2018-12-28T15:57:45","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T15:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/?p=4530"},"modified":"2021-07-16T01:57:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T01:57:24","slug":"runner-feature-matthew-haslam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/runner-feature-matthew-haslam\/","title":{"rendered":"Runner Feature – Matthew Haslam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"RunnerMy name’s Matt I’m a dad of 4, soon to be 5, and am married to my Kay who’s been a huge part of my training and my best supporter!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well 2018 started and I was incredibly out of shape, so much so I didn’t even want to check my weight!! New years resolution was to lose weight, and when I stepped on the scales I was 19.5 stone<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

I was very overweight, I started running on the 22nd January <\/strong>to lose the lbs. I ran 5k<\/strong> in a sauna suit, and did so every day after that without a day off for so long – no matter how long it would take<\/em>. I changed my diet, cut out the fizzy drinks, chocolates, crisps, cakes etc.<\/p>\n

The first month or two was the hardest, motivation was a massive factor because before January I had none of it!<\/p>\n

I watched a documentary on YouTube called “Running to the limits”<\/em> and it was about an overweight man in his 20’s, he was a drinker\/smoker, weighed over 16 stone and he set out on a journey to run an Olympic qualifying time at the London Marathon – what he achieved inspired me to push for things that I thought was unreachable… so I set myself a few goals:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Sub 20 5k<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Sub 40 10k<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Sub 90 Half Marathon <\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Sub 3:30:00 marathon<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I started training for my first race which was the Manchester half marathon on 20th May<\/strong>. I was 14.7 stone<\/strong> on race day so I had lost almost 5 stone! <\/strong><\/p>\n

    I ran the race in 1:34:20<\/strong>. I knew then that if I carried on I could do what I set out for… so I signed up for 3 more half marathons<\/a><\/strong> after that one and one 10k.<\/p>\n

    I went for my sub 40 attempt at the 10k run<\/a><\/strong> on the Alderley Edge bypass 10k<\/strong> in July and got 41:49<\/span>, undeterred I signed up for the Wilmslow 10k<\/strong> on November 25th.<\/p>\n

    I got my sub 20 5k at my first Parkrun in August with a time of 19:54<\/span>!!<\/em><\/p>\n

    On September 2nd I got my sub 90 half marathon at the Hatters half<\/strong> in a time of 1:28:59<\/span>. I was unfortunate to get injured a week after this on 9th September while I was training for the Chester Marathon<\/strong> on October 7th.<\/p>\n

    I couldn’t walk…<\/em> two separate doctors told me that if I ran a marathon in 4 weeks that I wouldn’t finish it and I’d probably need surgery on my knee because I would make it worse. I had to lay off training for a full 3 weeks. I managed a couple of runs the week before the marathon but nothing that gave me confidence I could achieve my goal time – my goal now was to finish and finish without being more hurt than when I started!<\/em> It was all going well until the 35th kilometre, when I hit “the wall” and my average pace dropped from 4:56 p\/km to 5:14 p\/km, the last 7.2 kilometres took me over 40 minutes and I finished in 3:40:49<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    After the injury I had more or less given up on the sub 40 10k attempt in November, I didn’t think my knee could take the training to push for that kind of time so I convinced my wife and her friend to sign up, so I could help them achieve a PB for themselves, then all wasn’t completely lost. One week before the 10k (November 20th) I saw an advert for a marathon at Oulton Park on 2nd of December<\/strong> so I thought great.. I had been doing a
    \nNovember 25th and the Wilmslow 10k, both my wife and her friend had gotten ill before the race and couldn’t go, I had just put in a big week of running because of my last minute marathon entry so I wasn’t confident of a good time at all… but I knew it was my last chance of the year so I went for it as hard as I could. I rolled over the finish line at 40:18<\/strong> I was 18 seconds off my sub 40 but I was over the moon with the time! No time to rest tho because my second marathon was one week away. <\/em><\/p>\n

    I weighed myself on marathon day (December 2nd) and I was 14.1 stone!<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I ran the first half of the marathon in 1hour 40,<\/strong> I knew I needed a big first half to make up incase the same thing happened at mile 22 again.. the hills on the course were soul destroying.. it was so tough<\/em>.. the last 10k again was a killer.. the worst ever but I didn’t let it beat me this time and I got a time of 3:29:10<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    \"Runner<\/div>\n

    Running for me was always about inspiring my kids, I wanted them to see their dad do these things to show them that you can do anything you set your mind towards! Well, it worked because my 7 year old<\/strong> daughter Katie broke the one mile record<\/strong> in her school and won a prize for it, it’s things like that make me push harder. I get more inspiration from my kids than they get from me, it’s a two way thing for sure. All my kids are pushing for there own goals in swimming, gymnastics and running!<\/p>\n

    Im currently doing the last challenge of my year and that is to run my highest monthly mileage.. target is 200 miles<\/strong> and I’m currently at 186 with 4 days left.<\/strong> I set this for myself because I knew going into December that motivation would be lower due to having no races lined up and the darker nights mixed with the Christmas and New year festivities, it’s been a good but challenging year and I’m ready for my 2019 goal of breaking the 3 hour marathon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    I think you could say i’ve had a pretty successful year having ticked off 3 of my 4 2018 goals:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Sub 20 5k ✔<\/li>\n
    2. Sub 40 10k -18 seconds off<\/li>\n
    3. Sub 90 HalfMarathon ✔<\/li>\n
    4. Sub 3:30:00 marathon ✔<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Oh and lost a total of 80 lbs<\/strong> in weight – Now bring on 2019!! <\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      My name’s Matt I’m a dad of 4, soon to be 5, and am married to my Kay who’s been a huge part of my training and my best supporter! Well 2018 started and I was incredibly out of shape, so much so I didn’t even want to check my weight!! New years resolution was to lose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4530"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6432,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4530\/revisions\/6432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}