We are excited to sit down and chat with Andrew Dorsett, who is a runner, father, home cook and all around inspirational guy. Andrew recently ran the London Marathon, in dedication to his mother who recently passed away. Find out more about Andrew’s journey to Health, Wellness and Happiness below!
- Tell us a little about your journey and when was it that you began to start running?
Technically I started running in October of 2013, but between then and February 2014 I think I logged about 9 or 10 runs in total, and none of those were anything more than 1.8miles in distance, so I don’t generally count them as “proper” runs.Plus, they were the run where I was so unfit that I struggled massively with swollen knees and just generally found running extremely hard to even think about doing. I never thought I’d be signing up for a marathon a few months later; I can assure you of that!
My initial reason for taking up this crazy sport was to just start improving my health, after having quit smoking about a year prior to that October. After mom died in March of 2014 though, everything changed for me. I decided running was going to be my “go to thing” in order to release my anger, get myself really healthy, and then commemorate her memory by, (hence the entry into the London Marathon.) She would’ve never believed that I would have run a marathon in her name, that’s for sure.
- Have you noticed any changes in your health and well-being since you began your running journey?
Grief yes! As I said earlier, when I started running I couldn’t run more than 2 miles. Once I had thrown myself into training the way I did, I started to notice massive changes.I weighed in at 96kg toward the end of April, and had a belly measurement of about 115cm around or something like that (I can’t remember the exact measurement.) I now weigh on average 76/77kg.
I also realized fairly quickly that I seem to be fairly good at running and within a matter of months; I was taking on my first half marathon event in September, with a second scheduled for the very next weekend after that. If you look back at my first few months of proper running, April, May, June, when I consider my “proper” running career to have started; you would see that I used to run about three times a week in total and would only cover about 20km in that week.
Now I run on average, about five or six days a week, log about 9 runs due to running double sessions sometimes (AM & PM on the same day,) and cover anything from 70 – 100km a week. My pace has improved tremendously too, so much so that I am now training for the rest of this year, in order to try and reduce my half marathon time, to such an extent that I will be able to hold pace with the elite runners up at the front.
Definitely not something you would expect from someone who has been running for a little over a year. As for my well- being? My day is not complete, if I don’t get a good run in first thing in the morning. Nothing sets you up better, than getting out onto the open road and having a good old dose of fresh air before you get yourself ready for the day ahead!
- Has running inspired you to take action, or create goals in any other areas of your life?
I think so. Running has made me take action. It’s given me the ability to create structure in both my life and that of my family’s, in a much more positive way. We eat a much healthier diet and I’ve learned so much more about my body and what I am doing to do it.It has opened up an entirely new world to me it seems and one that I never previously thought I would consider. I have since thought about studying to become a Life Coach, Personal Trainer, or even a running coach.
These ideas have become even more realistic to me, due to the amount of people at work, as well as friends around the world, who are constantly asking me for advice on nutrition, workouts and running plans etc. It would appear that my passion for running, food and life in general, has started to rub off on others and I put this down to the running. Running has inspired my inner soul to be more positive and set new goals in life, the biggest of those goals, is to be as healthy as possible!
- What has been your biggest struggle in life so far? And what has been your biggest triumph?
My biggest struggle in life so far, has been dealing with the loss of my mother. It was not an easy thing to do, to sit there for nearly 48hrs solid in the hospital and literally watch her fade away, ultimately watching her take her last ever breath. Those two days will stay with me forever. My biggest triumph was crossing the finish line at the London Marathon one year later. I had a private word with my mother as I crossed the line, clutched my medal and let her know that that it was all for her.
- What’s up next for you?
Well, now that I have completed my marathon challenge set to commemorate my mother, it’s time to do things for me I believe. The rest of this year, I am dedicating myself to improving my health even more, by wanting to develop and tone my body. If I’m going to be advising people on how to be healthier etc, then I need to be able to show that I know 100% what I am talking about. At the same time, I’m going to continue to progress with my running. I have four half marathon events coming up toward the end of the year, one a month for the last four months of 2015.
By the time I complete each of these events, I would like to be running a sub 90min half marathon, which means that I will be starting to play with the elite runners, up at the front areas of these events. Once that is complete, I plan on heading into 2016 with eyes firmly set on the ultra-marathon scene, where I would like to compete in a 50k and 100k event.
Things don’t stop there though, as I want to use 2016 as a stepping stone into 2017, where I would like to compete in a 50mile and 100 mile event. By this time, I would also like to be considered as a half decent running coach within my local town running club, (of which I plan on joining at some stage this year in order to help me build on my running ability.)
- What advice do you have those out there who want to make changes in their lifestyle, yet struggle to even begin?
Just get on with it. Don’t sit there and say you’ll do it tomorrow, or you’ll start on Monday. The minute you think that you want to do it, start doing it. There is nothing worse than procrastination. Don’t tell yourself you can’t either! There is no cant. Tell yourself you can, or tell yourself you can’t, one version will benefit you 100%, the other will do nothing!
If you want to lose weight, look at what you’re eating, when you’re eating etc and change it. There is so much information out there, right at the tips of your fingers. All it takes is a few seconds to literally type a few words into a search engine and BOOM, endless amounts of information about how and what to do, to get yourself sorted out. You don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars, or pounds etc, there are countless amounts of free info out there. Use what we have; including YouTube is an amazing tool for this info.
If you don’t know how to do something, or would like to see how something should be done, look it up and watch it. That is how I learned how to exercise and also how to improve my running the way I have recently.I watch a certain American pro ultra-runner, who delivers weekly training talks for nothing. His training has helped me drop my 5k run time, from 25mins to nearing a sub 20min effort! That may not sound like much, but trust me, when you start running, you will realize just how much every second counts and 5 mins off a previous best, is not something to be sniffed at.
Finally, remember to draw inspiration from others, but gain motivation from within!
