Grantham man lost a third of his weight by running over 3,350 miles
A Grantham man completed a year of exercising daily, which saw him cover a distance of over 3,350 miles and lose over five stones in weight.
Daniel Pearce, 38, did not envisage running such a vast amount or transforming himself quite so much when he set out to exercise more when the first national lockdown was imposed.
His running began with a challenge between himself and another volunteer at the heritage centre at RAF Scampton, and gradually built up.
Beginning on March 25 2020, Daniel covered a mile and a half on his first run, which left him “absolutely knackered”. However, it wasn’t long before his distances began to build up and within weeks he was running 100 miles per week.
Most recently, he completed 40 consecutive half marathons in as many days, and capped this off with a full marathon on Wednesday, which took three hours, 52 minutes, 15 seconds to complete, a whopping 37 minutes faster than his first attempt at a marathon seven weeks prior.
Daniel has also completed charity running challenges, including the Lancaster Challenge, which was a 500km run to raise money for the RAF Museum, which he was able to complete in 22 days.
Having now completed his year of exercise, Daniel now considers himself to be a runner.
He said: “I think a lot of it is psychology. You put barriers up. If I was to take a day off, I might think to myself ‘that’s it, the run is over’ and can I [do it] again? Will I still be able to?
“There hasn’t been a decision-making process at all throughout this, apart from just getting out and exercising. Everything has just developed naturally. I didn’t set out to do 40 half marathons, but by the second week, I was still doing it and felt physically able.
“I’m very lucky that I haven’t picked up any injuries, and I’ve just carried on. I’ve been very fortunate with friends being very supportive as well. That was a massive help. Those same friends have also said that I’ve been quite mad and that I need to start thinking about settling down a bit!”
Daniel runs multiple Tae Kwon Do classes across the Lincolnshire area with his mum, Jill, and hopes to continue the legacy of local instructor Malcolm Scholes, who passed away unexpectedly back in December.
Daniel also praised the local tae kwon do community, and is looking forward to restarting classes.
He said: “We’ve been on Zoom over this last year. We’ve got a nice community that have stayed online with us and been very supportive. We’ve managed to carry on our clubs which is fantastic.
“The last 12 months have been very strange. We had to close, and then there was a period during the summer last year when we could reopen with all kinds of restrictions in place, then we had to close again.”
Daniel hopes that his running story will inspire others and show people that anything is possible with determination, and noted that it was important not to get downhearted if there are no immediate results and to keep going.
He said: “It’s getting started really, I would like to think that someone is going to read this story and think ‘but that’s mad, I could never do anything like that’, but getting started is the hardest part and getting over those first few days or weeks.”
