Why I Run: Trent Knox
In 2016, Trent Knox founded the 440 Run Club, a group who meet each Saturday morning at 5am at Sydney’s Bronte beach. While the club has been pivotal in Knox’s sobriety journey, this year he began training for events like the Sydney Marathon and fell in love with running all over again
When Men’s Health catches up with Trent Knox, he’s just over a week out from the Sydney Marathon. It’s the 45-year-old’s first go at the distance and Knox’s excitement about the challenge that lies ahead is spilling down the line. “You can probably hear it in my voice,” he laughs. It’s true, you can – he’s in a good place.
“It’s brought me so much joy because I’ve proven to myself that age doesn’t matter,” says Knox, who in 2016 founded the 440 Running Club, a group that meets every Saturday morning at 5am to run up the hill at Bronte 10 times. “Because we forget and we knock ourselves down – that you’re over the hill, it’s too late – and I realised I was the only one getting in my own way. So, I just got out of my own way and just started turning up and I’ve just really had fun with it.”
While the 440 Running Club has been a crucial plank in Knox’s sobriety journey, taking on the challenge of a marathon has transformed his running into a more holistic pastime. Where before it was akin to an active form of therapy and a means to help others, this year, Knox says, it’s become something that offers goals to pursue and with them intrinsic personal rewards. “What I’ve realised by entering in these events, getting momentum in my training and feeling good, is that I’m taking something back for me,” he says. Knox’s story, told here in his own words, is a testament to the ways your relationship with running can evolve, depending on where you are in your life.
WHEN I FIRST started the run club, there were two reasons we were running the hills. One was to get really fit and improve our running because running hills is hard. It was doing something hard and taking yourself out of your comfort zone.
I was also running to keep myself out of trouble. I thought getting up at 5am on a Saturday would eliminate me going out and misbehaving on a Friday night. And what I realised over time is that unless you’re getting help, which I wasn’t getting, those things are just band-aids. They’ll keep you on the straight and narrow for a period of time, but if you’re not getting additional help, then nothing gets better.
The purpose and the intention was different then to what it is now, because I’m over four years sober now. And the biggest reason I’m sober is because I actually put my hand up within the community and leaned in on the 440. A lot of other people in the community that were also on their own sobriety journeys started sharing their stories. The more I shared what was going on with me and putting my hand up that there were things I needed help with, it took the stress out of trying to get sober and allowed me to go and get help and deal with some childhood trauma, as well as confront the things that were driving me to self-destruct.
But my relationship with running has changed. I realised I didn’t have to flog myself, to punish myself, if I wasn’t in a good space. I realised that if I’m having a bad day, I can just go down and walk with everyone on Saturday morning. If I’ve had a long week, I could go and walk, or I could just go and sit on the fence and take photos. Getting up religiously at 4am on a Saturday to go down and be with people who are all there for the same purpose of connection and movement, changed my lens on running. I turn up whether anyone else is there or not and I’ll always turn up and move because I know that I’ll always feel good afterwards.
This year, I came to the conclusion that there was something missing. That although I’m very connected to the community, I wasn’t doing anything for myself. I thought I was being kind to myself, through sobriety and meditation and training, but I actually wasn’t taking anything for me. I had no piece that was mine.
So, I signed up for the Sydney Marathon. It’s the first time I’ve signed up for a major race and the whole process of doing a training block and seeing what it’s done for me in the last three months – having a timeline and a goal – has completely just… how do I say it? I’ve fallen in love with running again, even though I already love it.
I’ve also entered the Mount Kosciuszko Ultra-Trail at the end of November, I’ve never done a trail. And I entered the City2Surf, which I used as a training run, knowing I’ve got these events coming up. I ended up running a PB, beating my time from 18 years ago. I’m 45.
I’ve been able to show myself that at any age, with the right approach, your body’s capable of more than what we think.
Importantly, for me, when I line up next Sunday [at the Sydney Marathon], that marathon is mine. The City2Surf was mine, even though I ran as part of our community. The Kosciuszko trail, it’s mine again.
And the feeling it’s given to me, over the past three months of training, is that I’ve taken something back for me. I think a lot of the time I used to run to not sit still with what was going on in my life and dealing with stuff. And now I think running, for me, is something that allows me to connect to myself. It’s allowed me to get a deeper understanding of who I am, where my purpose lies. Running teaches me how to be kind to myself, because you can run to flog yourself and run to punish yourself, but you can run just to check in on yourself too and see how you’re travelling.
It’s been a real beautiful journey. I’ve really got to know myself again.
*Knox completed the Sydney Marathon in 3.00.05.
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