Inspiring story: from asthma sufferer to elite runner

Today’s guest is a lady who I came across in a Facebook group for marathon runners, and after reading some of her jaw dropping story I knew that she’d make a great guest for the podcast.

Rachel Kennedy is a runner, and just a few short years ago she was a complete beginner. In fact, she describes how she despised anything related to athletics - at school she was sick a lot with asthma, was - as she put it - the theatre nerd - and thought sports were a joke.

I’ve spoken to many people over the years who have been put off physical exercise during their school career so the story so far isn’t particularly unusual.

But then in 2018 she decided to try running and was delighted to eventually complete a run without having an asthma attack.

She stuck with it, started entering races, half marathons, then marathons, and made a few other changes to her lifestyle along the way.

Fast forward to today, and she’s running marathons in elite times, and is currently eyeing up the qualifying times required for selection by the US team for the next Olympic Games.

Her trajectory has been astonishing, and of course we get into some of the details of this in our conversation, but I was most interested in how she shifted her mindset - and even her identity - to shake off old stories and begin a brand new one.

I get the feeling that right now we’re parachuting into the middle of Rachel’s story: even since recording this at the end of 2022 she has been setting yet more personal best times and has been invited to join the elite field of a major event in the US.

There’s a huge amount of inspiration to be found in listening to Rachel share her story, but some practical tools as well. We all have our own stories and some of these may well be holding us back. We might not all be vying for a spot at the next Olympics, but some of these ideas may help us unlock a little more of our own potential.

Check out Rachel's Facebook profile to follow her incredible journey

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