Watching Paul Goodson conquer Hong Kong’s gruelling trail runs and blaze through Hyrox arenas, it is hard to imagine that nine years ago he was trapped in an obese body that was failing him.
“That moment was a reckoning,” Goodson says.
For the London-born geography teacher, it kicked off a journey that would take him to Brazil and his current home in Hong Kong – and transform him into a Hyrox competitor and endurance runner. He shed 66kg over the next five years, his weight dropping to 84kg. He has kept close to that weight since.
“When I weighed 150kg, any exercise was painful. My earliest big wins were simply going for short walks, one to two kilometres,” he says.
He followed his doctor’s recommendation to join the UK-based weight-loss support group Slimming World in 2018.