In 2012, alone, lying on the floor of my office after dark, staring at the ceiling and waiting for the feeling in my left leg to return. I resolved to finally seek medical help for the symptoms that had been plaguing me for years, symptoms which had recently worsened.

I was a determined young man from blue-collar South Dunedin, near the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand. I had shown promise in various sports but ultimately settled on athletics and running as my passion and outlet.

Running gave me everything.

In my early childhood, it provided for me. As the eldest of two boys raised by a solo mother on health benefits, I was signed up for my first circular delivery ‘run’ shortly after arriving in Dunedin at the age of 7. Running alongside Mum in the car, posting circulars into letterboxes, eventually evolved into racing out the door right after school, loaded with a full hiking backpack to complete multiple delivery routes across the Corstorphine hills before joining my mates to play soccer, rugby, or cricket until dark.

Running gave me freedom and solace.

As a hot-headed farm boy, I was uprooted from a large extended family in a small rural town with the population of 90 to face the loneliness of a ‘big’ city at the other end of the country after my parents’ divorce. I was often angry or in trouble. No one could keep up with me, so often I would just run, anywhere, everywhere.

Running brought me respect and recognition.

At age 8, I won my primary school cross-country race against kids three years older than me. Representative teams in multiple sports soon followed. I was fit, fast, and strong—a coach’s dream.

Running gave me family and friends.

My running club raised me. It provided me with multiple adult male figures I respected, older siblings to look up to and train with, and younger generations to coach and inspire. My coach would pick us up from school and drive us to the athletics track or cross-country fields for training twice a week, year-round—rain, hail, or shine. Those summer evenings racing around the track with my mates are among my most cherished childhood memories.

Running instilled in me ambition and determination.

I won a national interprovincial 1500m title at 12, set numerous club records, and proudly collected 15 individual and team national medals before graduating high school. I had big dreams, often falling asleep with running books in hand, meticulously filling out my training diary. I became quietly fanatical about my progress.

However, my progress slowed during my later school and university years. I believed I was training hard, yet my speed seemed to diminish. I found myself moving to longer distances, assuming everyone else had simply caught up.

Still, In 2010, I made a New Zealand team to compete in the 3000m Steeplechase against Australia. The following year, I traveled to America with a NZ invitational team to compete in the largest road relay race in the world against shoe companies and other national teams. We finished 4th.

But something wasn’t right. I hadn’t truly improved in years. While I occasionally had a good race over a new distance or course, my times in my core events were barely better than when I was 16. I often ended long runs with a dead left foot, and tingling in my legs began to develop in my early 20s. I told no one.

On the floor of my office, the feeling in my left leg returned, and I dragged myself home to book a physio appointment. This led to a hospital appointment for X-rays, which found me sitting in a chair opposite a spinal surgeon, who told me I would lose the use of my legs within three years.

It was a one-hour consultation, but those first words were all I heard. The surgeon, through a twist of fate, knew me—he was the boss of my orthopedic nurse girlfriend at the time—and he was aware of my running pedigree. He took great care to explain the situation using skeletal props and images, agonising over the best course of action. After several consultations and follow-up scans, he eventually told me my lumbar region would need to be fused and gave me a 50% chance of being able to run properly again post-surgery. However, he cautioned that if I did, my body would never be able to withstand the strains of full training.

My spinal cord, specifically my sciatic nerves, were being crushed and had already suffered likely permanent damage. I had a congenital birth defect in one of my discs (L3), which was born without ‘hooks’ and caused everything below it to twist and contort during puberty. This meant I had lost two inches of height, and my pelvis had slowly rotated over the years, reducing the power of my glutes by up to 50%.

Counterintuitively, running had held me together.

Constant training improved my core strength and other large muscles, alleviating the strain on my lower back and allowing me to last as long as I did before ending up in a surgeon’s office.

The surgeon wanted to give me the option of continuing to train and race for another year or two but cautioned my ability would continue to wane and that there was a risk of more permanent damage. I had a decision to make.

I made my decision. On August 13, 2013, at 24 years old, I lay on the operating table with two orthopedic surgeons, a neurosurgeon, and an anesthetist looking down at me. When I woke up, I would no longer be able to walk.

Weeks and months of rehab followed. Learning to walk again in a metal cage in the hospital, while on a cocktail of drugs, became my new normal. Flatmates became caregivers, and hallucinations were a regular occurrence. I gave up half my home medications to think straight and threw myself into rehab and whatever work I could do, but I found myself longing to move my body and escape to see the world.

Fifteen months post-surgery - still not fully healed, suffering through long-haul flights and overnight busses, but loving it - I was on the opposite side of the world, having finished traveling through Europe over the summer months. I decided not to board my return flight home from Barcelona; instead, I maxed out my credit cards, boarded a flight to London from Turkey, and signed a lease for a share flat in Dalston.

Over the last 10+ years, London has given me opportunities I could only have dreamed of, and the surgeons who operated on me in 2013 gave me the ability to realise them. I have rebuilt my body during this time, and over the last three years, I have taken up running again. Slowly working through referral injuries and issues, I have built my body back to handle 80, 90, 100+ km training weeks.

I aim to run the London Marathon in the city that has given me so much, for the charity and the surgeons who gave me my life back.

My goal time is 2:40:00 - I hope to go faster.

Please support me and this amazing charity that helps countless people like me around the world live their lives and realise their dreams.