“In all honesty, running was something that I was pretty well deterred from since I was about 15. Although as a kid I was absolutely in love with it, doing every event possible through school and a few cross countrys… and not to brag but I was doing bloody well in them. I guess life happens, we all fall out of that love with certain things like that (or so I thought).
Around age 16 was where life hit me in the guts fairly hard. Severe depression from trauma caused by losing good friends sent me into a horrible spiral of drugs, alcoholism and what seemed to be a never ending thought of suicide. Fair to say I lived a very destructive lifestyle because to me I really felt I had nothing left. About 8 years of the same repeating lifestyle and one really bad night later, I decided to get up and within a couple of days I had booked a one way ticket to leave it all behind and move here to Queenstown. It took some time to gather myself, still being pretty unwell and now without the comfort of family and friends, it became a very lonely life very quickly. That was until I met one very special lady while I was out getting some things from Mitre 10.
For about 3 months I thought she despised me because whenever I came in she would quickly run away to do something else, but funnily enough she never hated me, she was just far too shy to talk to me. One thing after another and we made contact and this is where I found out she was a madly obsessed runner, and far out was I impressed by everything she had accomplished! I thought I would never stand a chance. So the first thing I did? Went for a run. Can’t be that hard right? Oh how wrong I was.
50m in and I was on my hands and knees, heaving, having almost just fainted. I decided to try walking for a kilometre and tried again… in comes the stitch from hell. Best way to describe it was like a heart attack in my stomach. Managed to scramble a run for about a kilometre and it actually felt really good finishing. I think that was where the switch tripped in me and I just had that want to run back in me. Mostly fuelled by the need to impress this girl. And well I guess it worked! Over a year later and we are still cranking out our runs together! My love for running is completely back, although there are parts of me that definitely still think I need to do it just to impress her! 
I haven’t ever been able to express how thankful I am for that girl, and how she pulled me up off the ground and gave me that drive, that want and that love for running again. Having done a few events now and my first marathon late last year, I am determined to keep going. I have a thirst for it, to go further, to be faster. I love it, and it’s all thanks to my beautiful partner, Jayde. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for her and her amazing soul.
Here’s to many more years of running and a whole lot more km’s!”
Josh @joshsboyd_
(Queenstown)
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Portraits of Runners + their stories
@runnersnz
