Paul welcomes the show's first international guest: Yobster, a Nigerian-born runner now based in Toronto, Ontario, whose running journey started in October 2024 in the middle of a career leap and a genuine mental breakdown. Four months later, with no training plan, no long runs, and a race-day fuel strategy of dates and electrolytes, he lined up for the Lagos City Marathon — went out too fast, hit the wall at halfway, and finished in 4:52 before his immune system gave out entirely for weeks afterward.

What follows is one of the most rapid and well-documented progressions the podcast has covered. Eight weeks of his first proper structured training block brought Milton Keynes down to 3:52, with his wife watching him race for the first time. A full cycle later, Toronto Waterfront dropped him to 3:35, his kids cheering from the course as he stopped at the 40K mark just to hug them. From there, a charity place at the London Marathon — run in memory of friends lost to pancreatic cancer — meant training through a brutal Toronto winter split between treadmill sessions and outdoor long runs, chasing a goal he almost didn't say out loud.

He crossed the London finish line in 3:19:56, four seconds inside his target, despite a tendinitis scare in the taper. But the heart of this conversation isn't the splits — it's what Yobster calls ”the journey”: a running philosophy built on Galatians 6:9 (”let us not grow weary in doing good”), why he cries at every single race, and how learning to be vulnerable — including a phone call with his young son praying for him mid-marathon — has reshaped his marriage and how his family sees him.

The conversation also gets into the mechanics: training by feel and heart rate rather than fixed paces, letting fitness ”come to him” instead of chasing a number, the cost of going out too hard in that first Lagos marathon, and what's next — the Berlin Marathon in two weeks, chasing 3:10, with sub-3 waiting patiently for whenever the journey gets him there.

Emotional, faith-filled, and full of hard-won wisdom — this episode is about patience, purpose, and what running reveals about who you really are.

The PKS Running Club Podcast is a running motivation podcast for everyday runners — real personal stories, honest conversations about health and fitness, and a growing community built around showing up, not chasing elite times. Hosted by Paul, it's a health & fitness podcast and community sports podcast for anyone running at their own pace, from first 5Ks to ultramarathons.

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