Hearing Your Stories: Craig Lewis
'Hard things are possible and there are no limits if you believe... I’d hope he would embrace that message, as it gets harder to teach to yourself as you get older'
Afternoon, friends! ☀️ You may remember that back in February, I put out a call to share your stories. Since then, we’ve heard so many amazing stories from our group here, and I feel like I’ve gotten to know you so much better one-on-one.
Today, you get to meet , who started running mainly as a way to stay in shape for the sports he played growing up, like soccer, cricket and rugby. It was only when he hit adulthood that he began to love running itself.
That led to trying long distances and even a marathon, until a health scare with a bout of pericarditis kept him away from running for many months. And even then, he was only able to come back slowly, a bit at a time.
Today, he’s fully back and enjoying himself again. I just love his story, and I know you will too — and, if you feel inspired to share yours too, I’d love to hear it. All you need to is reply back by email or in the comments below, and we’ll go from there. — Terrell
So, let’s hear a little bit about you! Who are you, your age (if you’d like to share), where you’re from, what you do, etc.
Who is
? The job interview answer would tell you I’m a 48-year-old former journalist turned marketeer and copywriter (cue spelling mistake) from Northampton in the U.K.But who really wants to hear what LinkedIn can tell you? The real me has been married to Michelle for nearly 20 years, and loves sport, literature and travel. Why do I suddenly feel like I’m one sentence from taking long walks on the beach…?
In recent years, running has become increasingly central to my life with Michelle and I having launched the Running Tales podcast, followed by our Substack newsletter.
What does your running routine look like? How many times a week, and how far do you run?
Erratic! I generally run for fun and for my mental health rather than with specific goals in mind. This means my routine can vary from week to week, and on some runs I don’t know whether I’m going to run five kilometres or 15 miles when I step out the door.
I have, though, just finished a training block for the Eden Project Marathon, which was much more structured. During that time, I was running somewhere between 20 and 35 miles per week, with a long run on Sunday. I even did some strength training!
That block has finished now though, so the plan is to be more relaxed until the New Year, and just run as and when I feel like it.
That said, the long — anywhere from eight to 20 miles — runs on Sundays are likely to continue as that is club run day. Michelle and I have a running club called Step Forward With Lewis, and try to put a relaxed Chatty Run on for all abilities every Sunday.
We are also big fans of parkrun, so most Saturday mornings will see us at a different park across the U.K. or at our local ‘parkrun home’ of Northampton Racecourse.
Were you an athletic kid growing up? What are your early memories of what fitness and health were about?
I don’t know if athletic is the right word, but I played pretty much every sport going.
I used to be a goalkeeper in football (soccer for my American friends), although that obviously didn’t involve much running, and I would play cricket two or three times a week.
I remember briefly and badly playing rugby and hockey at school, and I was able to finish 16th in my school cross-country three years in a row — cleverly avoiding the top 15 finish which would have meant having to take part in a county event that I’d have been humbled in!
I did represent my school at 1,500m a couple of times, and ridiculously at 100m when I came last by a considerable distance. Sprinting was never my thing.
My earliest memories were that I always loved playing sport and being active. Team sports were my first love, but anything that kept me moving was a winner in my eyes.
How did you first get into running? Was there something that inspired you — like a performance at the Olympics, for example, or a runner you discovered by watching them on social media or TV? Or was there someone in your own life who inspired you to think, ‘maybe I can do this?’
Apart from my sporadic school running exploits, my earliest running experiences were all based around staying fit for other sports.
Although I would regularly watch the Olympics and other major athletic meets, they never had the same pull as Ashes cricket or World Cup football. I do remember loving watching the likes of Steve Cram, Steve Ovett and Seb Coe battling it out at the top of the middle distance running world, but I was never pulled to take it up myself in any serious way.
At university, and really for the next couple of decades or more, running was something I did occasionally just to prove I could still move and to keep my cardiovascular health ticking over.
That said, there must have always been something in me urging me to run. I remember a charity run I did when I was about 13, raising money for my cricket club by running round the outfield. While most of my teammates had quit after a lap or two, I was still going after 20… Harvey Lewis eat your heart out!
And, in 2012 I ran the Milton Keynes Marathon. It was one of those bucket list goal things that I didn’t foresee happening again. Plus, it was really hard… I finished with no great desire to run more than 10K in the future.
How has your interest in running evolved since then? Do you run farther, or faster now?
Further, faster and more often. Much to the surprise, no doubt, of my former self.
During my training for that first marathon, Michelle had joined me for the last few miles of a few longer training runs. Around that time, she was firmly bitten by the running bug, and within no time was clocking up marathons — she’s done 19 now — and forming her own running club.
Michelle made sure I kept myself honest through running, but it remained well down my list of “things to do” and, when I did run, I was picking up a lot of injuries as I was always running at (my) top speed (and I’m VERY flat-footed!).
That all changed due to two different things. Firstly, I challenged myself to run 1,000 miles in a year, deciding to run slower and do more group runs in an attempt to avoid injury.
My new plan not only worked in terms of injury avoidance, but I started to get faster as well.
But the real change came the following year.
It was actually while I was editing one of the episodes of the podcast, which was live by then with Michelle hosting, that I felt a pain in my chest. At first, I thought it was it was indigestion but it got steadily worse and I couldn’t lie down without being in extreme pain.
Less than two hours later, I was being rushed to hospital, full of morphine and digesting an early heart attack prognosis.
Indeed, I made it all the way to the operating table before the surgeon told me it wasn’t my heart — at least not in the way I’d thought. I had a viral condition called pericarditis, which causes the pericardial sac that holds your heart in place to inflame. This puts pressure on the heart itself, presenting all the same symptoms as a heart attack.
Although the diagnosis wasn’t as bad as it might have been, pericarditis came with a seven month recovery time. Initially, my heart rate would peak at 180 if I walked up a short flight of stairs.
Running was out of the question for several months, and when I returned it was via the Couch to 5K app. Every run was a post-pericarditis distance PB, but I was running too fast for what I should have been doing. The answer was to start running on the trails, taking photographs and videos of the woods and fields I carefully made my way through.
And I loved it. Before long, I was running further than I ever had before, culminating in my first 50K and later the 107-kilometre Isle of Wight Challenge.
My illness had helped me to find a running that I loved, enjoying the scenery and serenity of the trails.
I’ve not got bored of them yet!
What do you balance your running with? Do you have a family to take care of? Kids, parents or other relatives or loved ones? If so, how do you balance all of it and still make time to run/care for yourself?
In terms of other commitments, Michelle and I don’t have any children and my parents are both healthy and have retired to Cyprus. You might, therefore, think that would mean I have more spare time than most to dedicate to running and other hobbies. But in truth, it doesn’t feel like.
I work full-time and Michelle is a self-employed fitness instructor and personal trainer. As with most self-employed people that means most of her running these days is spent chasing her own tail — and I get called in to help on occasion.
Sometimes, I do wonder how those with young children and/or caring responsibilities manage to find the time to do anything. That they can find the energy to run, and achieve amazing things, is inspiring.
Me? I just try and keep moving forward whenever I get the chance!
Is there anything you’re especially proud of that you can point to your running and say, ‘this helped me achieve ______’?
From a personal point of view, I’m pleased with some of the distances I’ve managed to run — 107 kilometres round the Isle of Wight was especially memorable, while completing a 50K event which I’d had to reduce to a marathon on a previous occasion was a proud moment.
In particular, using running to recover from pericarditis was fulfilling and it has pushed me to achieve levels I hadn’t reached prior to the illness.
Running has also really helped me with my mental health, and I always feel better after a run — and am probably a nightmare to be around when I’ve had a few days off!
All that said, I’m most proud of how running has allowed me to help others achieve things in the sport. Firstly, via Running Tales, where I have really enjoyed being able to tell people’s stories and promote those runners who have done incredible things in the sport outside of the elite level.
My favourite stories come from those runners who don’t even realise they are exceptional or that they have a story — revealing what they have done and being able to reflect their achievements back to them can be very special.
Secondly, I love seeing some of the results we get from the running club. Helping runners complete their first 5K, set a new PB, or just find themselves on a group run is a tribute to the power of running, and it’s great to be a small part of that.
What have you learned about yourself from your running journey? Is there anything that’s changed about you since you started?
That I’m really grumpy when I’m not running!
More seriously, running has helped me to realise that I can do hard things, although remembering and celebrating those achievements rather than simply moving on to the next one is something I’m still working on.
I’m probably fitter — at 48 — than I have been at any other stage in my life, and that’s definitely down to running. I’ve learned that to remain fit for longer, I need to keep moving and that running has become my way of doing this.
It has also taught me that getting out in the fresh air, enjoying nature and both embracing some vital alone time or enjoying conversations with others are essential for my happiness, and I’d argue for anyone’s.
Running has also demonstrated to me that people can do unbelievable, inconceivable things. We are all capable of so much more than we think.
On Running Tales, I have spoken to runners who have overcome drug and alcohol addiction, completed superhuman feats despite having Parkinson’s or cystic fibrosis or cancer, who have run multi-day events or covered hundreds of miles in one event, and who’ve finished their first parkrun when they thought it would be impossible. It’s pretty amazing, and so are all of us runners!
Where would you like to go with your running? Is there anything special you’d like to achieve — like, say, running all six World Marathon Majors, or running an ultra?
I have an itch to run a sub-four hour marathon, but if I can get that out of the way my main aim is just to do interesting and different events. I’d like to do more trail running races, and after the Eden Project Marathon this year I’ve entered Beachy Head Marathon for 2026. I’ve also got an eye on doing some point-to-point ultras to see how I get on with those.
If I can achieve any PBs along the way I’m not going to complain, but really I’d like to do events that leave me with a smile on my face and having seen some amazing scenery or done something a bit unusual.
What keeps you going? Especially if you’ve been running for a while — do you ever get bored with it? How do you find new things to motivate you, to keep you going?
At the moment, I’ve been enjoying running more than ever before and my motivation has been fairly high. I used to get bored with doing purely road running or pounding the same streets again and again, but taking to the trails has solved that issue.
My running friends at Step Forward With Lewis and parkrun help to keep me going, and when I hear about other people’s amazing races or stories that keeps me inspired as well.
Look back at yourself when you were a kid, maybe say 10 years old. Remember how you felt, what you thought, especially what you thought you were capable of back then. If you could talk to that kid now, what would you say?
As a child, I always thought I’d play cricket or football forever, and I wouldn’t want to put my younger self off from doing those things, but I’d also tell them to think of running as an end point rather than simply the means to do those other sports.
If I could talk to my younger self, I’d tell him hard things are possible and there are no limits if you believe in yourself. I’d hope he would embrace that message, as it gets harder to teach to yourself as you get older.
I’m working on it — 10-year-old Craig would probably have grabbed it and, ahem, run with it...
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Thank you so much for sharing my story Terrell. I love reading these pieces so it’s great to be featured myself.
Craig, it sounds as if you and your wife have created a beautiful life for yourself and others. I recently heard a story the other day which ended with the idea that "it's not the mark that we make on the world that matters, but rather the mark we make on each other ". Sounds like you have both figured that out nicely. Enjoy and love your sense of humor. 👣‼️