4am starts and family help dad shed weight
James Puru-Peri had let himself go, so he set a goal and his alarm clock. Troels Sommerville reports.
Over the past few years James Puru-Peri had let his diet get the better of him. Halfway through 2020 the security officer tipped the scales at 150kg, the heaviest he had ever been.
‘‘I was pretty upset about my weight, I had just sort of let go,’’ Puri-Peri said. ‘‘I had to do something.’’
So he set himself a goal. First it was climbing Red Hill near his house in Papakura, Auckland.
The first time he tried to climb the hill in August it took him an hour and a half. It was a fair reality check, but it didn’t deter the 34-year-old father-of-five.
Instead, he set himself a new goal: every day in September he would climb that hill and complete a 5.5km loop back to his house. But in order to do it he had to get up at 4am before heading off to work, so he could still take his children to their sports in the afternoon.
Soon his brood started to join him which was a big boost as his enthusiasm began to wane.
‘‘My kids made it fun, because it wasn’t fun.’’
They would take it in shifts, depending on who was up to it when Puru-Peri left each morning. ‘‘ I would just call out that I was heading out the door, and whoever was up and awake
would come with me.’’
His times stagnated until he started his weekend ritual of hiking up the 750 or so stairs at Camp Sladdin in Clevedon. Four months later, and he’s cut his time to less than 30 minutes and has set his sights on February’s 8.4km Round the Bays run.
But he won’t just be running the course that snakes along
Auckland’s waterfront. Instead, he has taken on a challenge set by his boss.
‘‘My boss made me have a real good look at what I was doing and gave me some encouragement to turn it around,’’ Puri-Peri said.
‘‘He runs marathons just for fun, so he heard about how I had been encouraging other people to come with me, and he set me this
goal.’’
He and a team of co-workers, who he managed to rope in, will carry a 40kg pack in a relay around the course, swapping the pack between each other every 300m or so.
To get used to the weight he has been training with the fullyladen pack and an extra 20kg weighted vest.
He has dropped 12kg, so far, and is much happier with how he is feeling. ‘‘Life got away from me, I guess. I got lazy – go home, go to work, go home, go to work – I just got complacent.’’
Puru-Peri will line up for Round the Bays at Auckland on Quay St beside Spark Arena on February 26 alongside thousands of other walkers, runners and rollers; all ticking off their own goals.
Challenge yourself by running Round the Bays. To enter, and for more information, go to www. roundthebays.co.nz. Round the Bays is a Stuff event.