Lee Grantham - October 2024
About Lee Grantham
I started to run on January 3rd, 2010. I went out for what I thought would be an easy hour of running. I lasted 400 metres, and I couldn’t run another step. Within seven years, I ran for England and won the British 100km Championships.
My marathon time went from 4 hours 25 minutes to 2 hours 21 minutes. My secret is that I fell in love with running and became obsessed with the improvement process.
The great thing about running is that, for me it's about everything and anything apart from running. It's about work ethic, drive, dedication, determination, consistency and discipline. Running instils an appreciation of delayed gratification, and a deep understanding of failure as a factor of success.
As a child, my life was all about sport. I wanted to be a footballer, but I played everything from cricket to badminton, from rugby to table tennis. I didn’t know it then, but playing sport for ten hours a day, repeatedly, builds a good aerobic base and so when I ran my first race, the second week of high school, I won by a long way and became captain of the cross-country team.
That put me into a positive feedback loop, where I was winning races for club and school on the grass before football games, and that would lead into summer where I’d run 1500 metres races, and then go to play long cricket matches.
You take that for granted, because as a kid you have no idea of how anything is done anywhere else. You’re in a bubble. But when I seriously started traveling, I realised how rare that exposure to a playful, sporting youth was. The life lessons, discipline, teamwork, work ethic, are second nature to me, but sport also keeps you out of trouble, which is important for a boy from Manchester.
My goal is not only to help more children find sport, but also to keep sport interesting for them in those key development years when things get tricky.
After school, I became a product of my environment. I wanted to be successful, and that for me, meant getting a great job, nice cars, a cool apartment, watches, clothes, eating and drinking in “the right” places, everything that I now know to mean nothing, but again, what else do you have to compare yourself against?
I landed a job in the city, where everything I’d learned in sport worked perfectly in my favour. The harder, and smarter I worked, the more money I made. The first to cross the line would win, and I won often.
I wore suits to work, and I enjoyed what I did. My parents seemed pleased, but something didn’t fit.
In 2009, I took a year out and went cycle touring in South-East Asia. Being alone on the bike for long days is an extremely powerful way to sit on your thoughts.
In the beginning, you start to ask yourself questions, and then the same questions keep coming up. “What are doing with your life?” “Are you happy?” “Is this your path?”
Eventually, the answers begin to repeat themselves too.
We are afraid to be our true selves because we are so afraid of rejection. You must be brave enough to live your life, and not abide by the expectations set by society or your peers. When you do that, people, even friends and family close to you will think and even say that you are crazy or irrational. This is a projection of their own fear of living the life they dream of.
Once you have conviction on that point, you are free. Once it starts to work, you are flying.
The answer that kept repeating itself to me, was that I wasn’t successful in my eyes, only to those around me. That’s what didn’t fit.
The answer that kept repeating itself to me was that I wanted to do exactly what I’d done as a kid, I wanted to be a runner, and the best runner I could be.
On one of my final long cycle tours from Bangkok to Singapore, I promised myself that I would start running again as soon as I landed back at my base in Southern Thailand. That was my run on January 3rd, and no matter how bad that run went, the fire was already lit.
Almost everyone laughed at the idea. You’re too big, you’re too old, how are you going to make money out of this? These comments came from people close to me, at the beginning when I was terrible, even when I started to win races, and run decent times.
They lasted until I signed my first professional contract, nearly 5 years later. Society’s measurement for success is money. Not joy, not purpose or fulfilment, or happiness. Dreaming is for children, and then we make them “snap out of it”. In 2017 I ran 2 hour 21 at London Marathon, and four weeks later became British 100km Champion to get my first GB vest.
I was, and remain immensely proud, but not because of the times or the wins, and certainly not the trophies. I’m most proud of how hard I worked when only I believed it was possible. Your heart never lies.
Since then, I’ve gone on to race all over the world, from South Africa, to the Maldives and from the Vietnam to Hull. In 2012, when my marathon time was 3 hours 25, which go my 2699th place at Barcelona – I moved to Granada to pursue running full time. I went “all in”.