About
Welcome to my about page, if you are reading this page, then you obviously want to know more about the person behind it all…..
I’m Richard Hayes, 43 from Stocksbridge, Sheffield. I’ve lived in the town since I was two, except when I was in the Royal Navy. I’ve lived in my current home since 2006 with my long suffering wife Sarah. We’ve been married since September 2006, having got married in Cyprus. Our daughter Molly came along two years later. over the years we’ve had some magical highs, such as trips to Disney and New York, to watching F1 at Silverstone and going to Download festival in 2025. We’ve also had some big lows, including Molly’s heart issues when she was 9 ( she is all fixed now) to my own heart attack in 2020, one thing throughout both the highs and lows is we’ve been a very close family.
Sarah has ran her own successful childcare business for 16+ years, which I help with the accounting and school runs, my main job is at LEGO, I currently work from home but work on Eastern Time as my team are all based state side. It’s been like that since COVID. I’ve had various roles over the year, firstly as a Fan ambassador to then starting in their website department, then as a designer and then on to working with the events team on large scale display models for events, to me current position in senior management. Since September 2022 I’ve also work a part time job with Costa Coffee doing 12 hours a week, this is to help pay for Molly to learn to fly (Mollu has dreams of going into either the RAF or RN as a pilot after she gets her A Levels), this is my second spell at Costa Coffee having previously been a manager of a store in Meadowhall before I joined LEGO. This year I had the opperunity to represent my local store at the Barista of the Year area finals which I won. Unfortunately I was able to take part in the regional finals due to it clashing with my other job and the logisitics of the location of the event.
Besides the obvious love of LEGO as I also have my own collection from sets I’ve designed to popular pop culture sets. I’m a big fan of all things pop culture, including Disney, Marvel as well as Sci Fi such as Star Trek, I’m a bit of nerd in a way and have a skill of knowing stupid pointless facts or being able to tell you facts from a football match decades a go. I’m a massive punk rock, nu metal and heavy metal fan, anything from Blink-182 to Korn and Pantera. However I’m also a fan of artists such as Johnny Cash and Gerry Cinnamon. Like everything in my life i’ve never ticked every box to fit into a certain genre or categoru and I’ve never conformed to what a punk is but I’m known for my mohican haircut especially when it comes to my running career. I used to be a big football fan but as I’ve gotten older I prefer Ice Hockey and Baseball. For years my sporting loves were Blackburn Rovers and Stocksbridge Parks Steels (over the years been a fan, the supporters club chairman, part of the media team, website administrator and statto to a committee member) while still look out for results its been a few seasons since I went to a game. In recent years my main passion has become baseball with Yankees being my adopted team as for ice hockey I follow Sheffield Steelers and Mapleleafs. Lastly I’m also a big wrestling fan loved it as a teenager in the 90’s and got back into it this year thanks to the new Netflix deal.
As mentioned I’m a Royal Navy veteran, my role was as a warfare specialist in the Submarine Service. I am proud member of the Royal Navy Association, Submarine Association and We Remember Submariners. In the RNA I am a part of the RNA Riders Group, which is a sub branch of like minded ex-matelots who have a passion for motorbikes. Speaking of motorbikes, I had motorbikes right up to 2006 when I sold my last bike to pay deposit on our current house, a RTC was the cause for me leaving the RN. A drunk driver hit me at 80mph and left me for dead, to cut a long story short, I woke up two days later to the tv on in the hospital ward, asking nurse what film was on, it wasn’t a film but it was the September 11th attacks. I ended up getting medical discharge due to my injuries sustained. I didn’t own another motorbike for 15 years but after 2020 being a shit year, Sarah agreed that lifes too short. I purchased a Yamaha XJ600 and made it in to a Gulf Livery streetfighter but the ended ended up needing a complete strip down and I felt it wasn’t worth the time and money. So instead I traded it for my current motorbike a ’98 Kawasaki ZX6-R and been working on it as my current project. It now has the unique 1:1 Costa Coffee livery with matching custom helmet and leathers, the bike is a real head turner and once it’s finished I hope to enter some competitions with it.
So that is me in a nutshell……… except the running side of my life!
Running is the reason for this blog. I decided to re-create a blog after a years break from having a personal blog after I closed my last one in October ’24, I will get to that later. I took up running in 2012. Due to my injuries sustained from my RTC I mentioned above I didn’t really look after myself in the interveaning years. Molly back in Christmas 2011 said daddy you look like Santa with your belly, it was the kick up the backside I needed. I joined a local gym at the start of 2012 and by August had dropped 4 stone, having hit 22 stone at my heaviest! People today don’t believe it. These days I’m 12st (something depending on my training). After achieving my goal I joined fellow gym members and owners as a collective group and entered my first ever race, the Great Yorkshire Run in Sheffield in September 2022. Not knowing jack shit about running I entered with simple goal to do it under 60 minutes. Despite breaking my big toe in months I managed to finish my first run in 57:54. While I didn’t set any records that day, I became hooked.
After finishing my first race, I signed up for another 2 weeks later. Again a complete newbie to the sport and didn’t know the differences between the terrains. This turned out to be more of a trail race but I ran it with my personal trainer and we went faster than the previous 10K two weeks earlier. The TenTenTen I finished in 55:15.
This got me thinking and over the coming autumn came up with a charity challenge of doing 13 x 10K races for charity, I struggled with some niggles over this period leading up to Christmas as my body continued to drop the pounds and had to strengthen my muscles. I signed up for a 3rd and final 10K of 2012 at the start of Christmas. This was a cold winter’s day but managed to knock a further 5 minutes of my previous 10K time at the Pecry Pud 10K recording a time of 50:15. This actually put me in a disadvantage leading into my charity challenge. As I had decided to make the challenge one race a month over 2013 plus one more to make up the 13 in thirteen challenge. To make it harder I also added in the fact I had to go faster at each race. I thought it would be easy but as I was to learn it would be anything but easy……
2013 was the start of the charity years, where I used my running to do various charity challenges, each challenge getting harder and crazier. The first challenge started in January 2013 and was for the NSPCC. I had used Childline a NSPCC service during my youth and credit to them for saving me from potential suicide due to the abuse I suffered. The challenge was my way of giving back to the charity.
The challenge was to raise at least £2,000 by running thirteen 10km races in 2013, doing one a month and adding the 13th one in. Plus to make it harder I had to go faster than my previous best. I had set my best time back in December running 50:15. The first race was actually called off due to snow, this was moved to the following month and meant I had to scramble for a race and found one in Preston called the Chernobyl 10k, completing it in 49:18. The challenged moved on with the first of two races in February, first the cancelled race from January at the Corby Raceway Brass Monkey 10K running 49:01. I joined my first running club in early 2013, Sheffield Running Club and when I wasn’t doing my challenge, I raced for them, including doing my first relay race. The challenge stayed home to run the Sheffield version of the Wrap up and run in Greaves Park. March and April were both in Sheffield on same route around Don Valley Stadium, firstly the Sheffield Varsity 10K and then the Lord Mayors 10K by now was 5 races in and my time was down to 47:16. I also did my first ever half marathon in Sheffield posting a time of 1:41:42.