By Sam Richards1
Running. Why on earth would someone do that for fun? I couldn’t think of anything worse. At least, that’s how I convinced myself to feel for the first 23 years of my life.
As long as I can remember, I’ve been overweight. I've tried a few diets here and there, but nothing really stuck. At 11, my mum took me to the hospital for a blood test to check why I was gaining weight so easily. I wasn't eating particularly unhealthily, so she thought this might help us assess what was happening. The results showed that I had a very slow metabolism. From that point on, I let go of any possibility of slimming down. If my body wouldn't let me, why would I even bother trying?
With this mindset, I began to deride anyone who exercised for pleasure, mocking them from the sidelines. Instead, I was more than happy to spend a weekend throwing can after can of cheap lager down my gullet and raiding my brother’s leftover pizza from the fridge on a Sunday morning. What better way to avoid dealing with my reality than bingeing fast food and booze?
It took the unthinkable for me to begin changing my relationship with food. In December 2021, my family moved from my childhood home out to the countryside. The same weekend, we learned of my mum’s breast cancer diagnosis. Before we had the chance to adjust to either of these changes, she passed away in January 2022. The night it happened, my dad, brother, and I ordered a huge Indian takeaway, but none of us touched it—a first in our house.
As one might expect, this hit me hard. The next 18 months were a blur, but I do remember how food became a greater vice than ever before. My mum had always been the health-conscious one in our family, the person who brought structure and balance to our meals. Without her, that framework fell away. Eating became my main source of comfort, and comfort was something I desperately needed. The weight piled on, slowly but steadily, until I found myself at a crossroads: keep numbing myself with food, drink, and inertia, or face the pain and make a change.
The first step was starting therapy, which helped lay the foundation for change. Not just in my mental health, but in my relationship with food. Early on, my therapist suggested I showed signs of ADHD—something I’d considered before but never seriously pursued. I dove into research, and several months later, I was formally diagnosed.
Skepticism aside, I started ADHD medication. Coincidentally, it also suppressed my appetite. Perfect! The newfound ability to focus was a revelation, and my tendency to binge eat started to fade. It felt almost too good to be true, and it was. As my body adjusted, my hunger returned, and the weight loss began to slow.
What I needed was a kind of inner determination. I was ready to commit, to see something through. So I swallowed my pride and started exercising by running. The freedom to simply get up and go made it an easy transition after sitting all day at my desk working. Through diet and my career, I had become so regimented in routine that running brought an entirely new dimension to my life. With easy access to the beautiful green countryside from my house, it was liberating to find a new type of solitude. With music playing and no one in sight, I felt gratification unlike any other. No more scoffing at exercise. My supposed distaste had never been real, just a funnel for my jealousy. How was it that I, fat Sam, was running further and faster than friends I'd once envied? Paired with consistent dieting, I hit my goal of losing five stone in no time. Running became my way forward.
After achieving my initial goals, I felt a bit aimless. I wasn’t sure what came next. What should I be working toward? Coincidentally, at this time, I had gone to the London Marathon to cheer on some friends. The atmosphere was incredible, and seeing thousands of people take part in the most iconic challenge of mental and physical endurance, many of whom were doing it for charity, inspired me. The thought of raising money in memory of my mum crossed my mind, and just like that, my new goal was set. I would run next year’s London Marathon—provided I could get a place, which is infamously difficult.
I applied to run for Breast Cancer Now, which is a fantastic charity and does incredible work in the ongoing battle with this horrific disease. A few months later, they offered me a spot on their running team! I was ecstatic and could barely contain my tears as I said thank you over the phone. Finally, I had a way to start repaying my mum for everything she’d given me. From the start, I told myself: if the money raised could spare even one person from what we went through, I know she’d be smiling down.
Up to that point, my running journey had felt almost effortless, like nothing could stop me. But my body had other plans. As my training ramped up, my lack of understanding about proper nutrition started to catch up with me. I wasn’t quite finished with my weight loss, so I continued my diet while increasing my training miles. The result? Injury after injury in the six to seven months leading up to race day. It felt bitterly ironic: after a lifetime of over-fuelling, the one time my body truly needed it, I was falling short.
Being sidelined was a real blow. As a freelance illustrator, I already spent most of my time alone at home, and running had become my chance to leave the house. During my downtime, I started reading about the connection between endurance sports and trauma, which helped me understand why running had become such a lifeline. The parallel between endurance sport and grief is more than just a metaphor: both require you to keep putting one foot forward, even when it hurts. If I could survive grief, I could also survive a run. Every time I hit “finish” on Strava was a hard-won victory.
With the marathon set for the end of April, I was only cleared to resume training at the end of February, leaving me with barely two months to prepare. From that point on, it was a mad dash to cram as much mileage and as many carbs as possible into every week.
One of my longest runs was scheduled for Mother’s Day, and it had been weighing on me for weeks. As someone who tends to overthink, I couldn’t stop cycling through the worst-case scenario: What if my injuries flared up so badly that I'd have to pull out? Also, the idea of spending two hours alone with my thoughts on a day so charged felt like the perfect storm for an emotional breakdown.
But that morning, something shifted. The sun was out. The pain of my injuries was at bay. My body felt steady, and so did my mind. In fact, it turned out to be the most enjoyable run I’d had in months. And as I flew through the quiet country lanes, I felt something I hadn’t in a long time—a calm I couldn’t explain, a sense of being held. It felt like my mum was running alongside me.
After months of training, setbacks, and emotional buildup, marathon day finally arrived. In the chaos of packing, planning, and wrangling my family, I somehow missed breakfast entirely. I showed up at Blackheath with nothing but a few jelly babies in my stomach. How did I overlook one of the most essential parts of running a marathon?
Like my training, the day veered quickly off script. It was the hottest day of the year so far, and as a redhead, my relationship with the sun is, at best, contentious. I was underfed, overheated, and still had 26.2 miles to go. Every carefully laid plan had cracked before I even reached the starting line. Nonetheless, the race was on, and I had no choice but to keep going.
The roaring crowds of London and the faces of friends and family supporting me kept me going. By mile ten, my body was already beginning to shut down. I could feel the sun beating down upon every step, and despite plenty of water, electrolytes, and energy gels, it felt like I had nothing left to give. How different things would have been if only I had started the morning with a peanut butter and jam bagel.
But the mind is a powerful thing. Even as every inch of my body screamed at me to slow down, I refused to walk. Not after everything I’d been through to get here.
The money I had raised had passed £6,000, and the thought of every single donor—each tribute to my mum—became its own kind of fuel. My mantra pounded in my head. Keep putting one foot forward.
My determination was getting me through, but at mile 23, I felt a huge SNAP in my knee, like a rubber band tearing inside me. I didn’t stop, but I couldn’t run. The final three miles felt like their own mini-marathon as I hobbled through the heat, trying to block out the fear that I had torn a ligament.
And then, I crossed the finish line.
Relief, pride, grief—everything I’d been holding onto washed over me at once in a cascade of tears. For so long, I had been living with this one goal in mind. And now it was over.
I kept thinking about who I was before my mum passed away, and how she last saw me. I felt so different from that person. I couldn’t help but smile, imagining her reaction to me crossing the finish line of the London Marathon. Her love for me had nurtured this entire journey, all of her sacrifices finally bearing fruit. I just knew she’d be proud.
As for the knee? It ended up being a ruptured Baker’s cyst, which, thankfully, although very painful, was nothing too serious. After all that under-fueling, not even a growth with a carb-y name could stick with me through the race.
A couple of months later, it’s become apparent that I want to run another marathon. A race without injury may be out of my control, but this time, you can sure as hell believe I’ll be eating breakfast.
A special thank you to this week’s illustrator Ti Xu2. See more of her work here.
Sam Richards / Richarts is a UK based illustrator. With both a bachelor's and master's degree in illustration, he now works freelance. His work is playful, using expressive characters whilst pushing the boundaries of perspective. Working primarily in editorial and children's illustration, he draws inspiration from his surroundings in the countryside, which is also where he loves to go running.
He also hopes to find his way into writing, having written his first children's book earlier this year.
Ti Xu is an illustrator and comic artist with a diversity of approaches and a focus on storytelling. She earned her bachelor’s degree in product design and master’s degree in illustration at Fashion Institute of Technology.
What stands out from Ti’s diverse body of work is a pursuit for sincerity and convincingness. She appreciates the richness and vividness of the real world and aspires to infuse them into her own work. Specializing in narrative art, her practice spans a wide range of mediums, from line-based illustrations to animation.