New York, New York - so good it helped turn Andre’s life around
How one runner went from the couch to New York Marathon - with some help from Instagram
“Why didn’t I start this sooner?”
Andre Cardin is clear, both in the Instagram message he posted after completing the New York Marathon and in his interview on our podcast before the race: Running changed his life and his only regret is not taking it up earlier.
At the start of this month, the 38-year-old completed New York’s premier running event in five hours, 13 minutes - the latest step in a journey which has seen him become fitter, lose weight and embrace improved mental health.
Andre has recorded much of his story on his increasingly popular Instagram channel, @andrerunz, a platform which has garnered almost three-and-half thousand followers.
It’s all a far cry from his school days, when Andre hated running and would consistently come last in an annual Bleep Test which bordered on the sadistic.
“I’d be dreading that I’d be the first one out,” he said. “It was demoralising. Everything about it just made me hate running.”
Andre eventually embraced the sport after becoming out of breath while kicking a ball around with his nephew in early 2023.
It’s a story that unites many of the runners we’ve spoken to on Running Tales - a sudden realisation that they need to be healthier or risk long-term illness and worse.
“I didn’t want to be the sort of father who is out of breath all the time,” Andre said.
“I knew at that point - I think it was two years ago - that I had to do something.”
His answer was to start ‘gamifying’ his fitness, using his Apple Watch to complete activity rings each day. Eventually, he decided he wanted to do something more, turning to running.
By May last year, Andre had progressed from the occasional dog walk to completing the Birmingham Half Marathon.
He told Running Tales: “At the time, it was my greatest ever sporting achievement and I was so proud of myself.
“To be able to do that from essentially a sitting start, it just showed that I could do it.
“Anybody can, just by having that change of mentality.”
Andre said finding running not only helped him lose weight and get fitter, but to leave behind “a horrible place” he had fallen into.
“I wouldn’t look at myself in the mirror because I didn’t want to see what was there,” he said. “Now, I’ve lost over 30 kilos and I’m the lightest I’ve been in about 20 years.
“I’ve got to the point where I absolutely love running. I’m doing it five days per week.
“If you’d told me that two years ago I wouldn’t have believed you. I wouldn’t have believed I’d be wanting to go out running.
“These days, if it’s raining or something like that, I’ll just put some extra layers on and I’ll go out. It’s completely changed my life.”
Finding community and acceptance in the running world:
Andre’s original motivation to run came from a desire to lower the numbers on his scales.
The sport had an immediate impact on both his health and weight, and that progress encouraged him to keep moving forward.
He said: “I’m definitely glad I persevered because I’ve seen those numbers [on the scales] go as low as they’ve been for years.
“It motivates me to keep going, to keep pushing those boundaries.
“From not even wanting to look in the mirror when I was shaving, I’m now comfortable doing that. I’m not really looking at myself, but I’m getting to the point of admiring the work that’s been done.
“It makes me sound a bit big-headed, but I’m really not. I’m just seeing myself in a different light.”
Andre told Running Tales he has found a real community through running, whether on Instagram or on race days when “you’re talking to like-minded people”.
His social media journey - he also has a TikTok account - has been central to his running development. He started posting before and after photographs on Instagram as a way of charting his journey.
“I just wanted a daily account of what I looked like,” he said. “I can compare January 2024 to 2025 and 2026, and so on. It’s a massive motivator for me.”
The reaction to his account has been hugely positive, something which surprised him initially given the negative stories so often associated with social media and those who post in comment sections.
He said: “I was very self-aware of myself at the start. I didn’t really want to hear any criticism because I didn’t want someone else telling me what I already knew.
“It’s definitely been very encouraging to receive such positivity. I’ve had no negativity at all which is surprising, but I know it’s not the same for everybody.
“In my posts, I’m never really trying to teach anybody anything. It’s generally about how I feel at a precise moment when I’m running.
“I’ve usually got my camera because I’m a bit of a techie geek at heart, so it’s another layer of trying to be self-confident. If I can speak in front of a camera, just off the cuff, it will bring another side out of me.”
Embracing running - From war with yourself to loving it:
Andre is keen to ensure his channel reflects the reality of running, recording details of tough runs or days which bring wind, rain or snow.
“I keep saying how I feel because you never know who’s out there that might be feeling exactly the same,” he added. “They might get inspiration to go out and run themselves.
“It’s another one of those things where I wish I’d done it sooner. It took me so long to record my runs because I had a terrible self-image but one day I decided I was just going to start this Instagram page and put myself out there.”
It was a decision which paid dividends not just in terms of his growing audience and encouraging community, but when he won a competition with The Running Channel to take part in the New York Marathon.
With that race now behind him, Andre shows no signs of slowing down. Another of the world’s most famous races awaits him next yeat in the form of the London Marathon.
There’s a point where running goes from being a chore - a war with yourself - to something you love.
Andre implores anyone who isn’t sure about the benefits of the sport or who is struggling with it to persist: “You might not like running at the start, but what it brings to you when you get over that boundary is worth it.
“It just opens up a completely different world that you never knew existed. It’s so easy to just sit on the couch and do nothing after work, but running opens up so much more.”
From hating the bleep test to the New York Marathon, it’s been quite the journey for Andre Cardin. No wonder he wouldn’t change a thing.
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Great story!