A huge congratulations to Jonny on his success as he smashed his challenge finishing his race in 1 hour, 5 minutes and 50 seconds raising a whopping £600 for the 16-25 years group!
Jonny started as a volunteer at Door 84 around 9 years ago and progressed into Senior Worker. He leads the 16-25 years group which helps young adults build skills and knowledge for everyday life, have fun and meet like-minded people of a similar age in a safe and friendly environment.
About 2 years ago, Jonny decided to lose weight, after hitting nearly 20 stone. He lost 5 stone through changing his diet and started to run for exercise. During the 2020 lockdown, Jonny started running with support from Coach Steve at Running Mind, a local coaching business focusing on supporting both physical and mental health. He has continued running and with the encouragement from Coach Steve, he decided to run the York 10K to raise money for Door 84.
We asked him a few questions.
How long have you trained for the 10K?
I started running in the first lock down to help with my mental health with guidance from my best friend Steve who opened up a coaching business called Running Mind.
Did you have a trainer to help you?
Steve was my trainer, we also ran the race together motivating and encouraging eachother on the way round.
Did you have a play list to listen to on the race?
I don’t listen to music when I run especially during the 10K, as I was running alongside Steve we would chat which made the time pass much faster.
What was the hardest part of the race?
Between the 7-9k was difficult we just have to keep pushing and kept supporting each other to across the line together. Once you finally got on to that last 1k we were running on pure adrenaline.
How do you feel now that it’s over?
I know it’s a cliche but there’s no other feeling like it. I couldn’t believe what I had achieved I couldn’t believe how much I had raised. I couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day, I’m also pretty sure I ate my own body weight in food afterwards!
Are you going to keep up running?
Yes definitely, I would like to run further 10K’s in other cities too, I’d like to run my next race in under 1 hour.
How will you spend the money raised?
Fun activities for the group, new equipment and food as cooking is very popular. The group members suggest activities so I’m sure they will have some awesome ideas.
