After collapsing in a parking lot and undergoing heart surgery, Ryan McLeod thought his serious running days were over. But finding some perspective and a brilliant performance at the London Marathon changed all that.
Ten years after DNS, former British half-marathon champion Ryan McLeod, who had heart surgery in 2016, finished 13th.th and the first M40 from the mass start at the 2026 London Marathon. His run of 2:19:41 represented a remarkable comeback from a Morpeth Harrier who was convinced he would never race again.
“Before the race I thought I’d be disappointed with that time, but I couldn’t have been further from it,” he says. “I’m absolutely buzzing and so proud of myself. It may not have been the time I wanted, but given the circumstances of the race, I feel I ran to the best of my ability on the day.”
The result of the race is rarely only no. perspective and context are everything.
Version 1.0 of McLeod was an elite athlete who ran personal best times of 29:04 for 10K (2011), 48:20 for 10M (2015) and 64:18 for the half marathon (2015). In March 2016, he represented Great Britain at the World Half Marathon Championships in Cardiff. He was disappointed with the 66-minute performance (“I was running as hard as I could run”), but he put his efforts against the virus.
Blood tests came back normal and he was advised to rest. He left London that April and took a break for the next month. His first two outings, sub-15 minutes and sub-31 minutes for the 10km, both of which were “supposed to be easy”, but he felt uneasy, put nothing to his concerns. The five-mile race in July only strengthened them. “That’s when I knew something was really wrong,” she says. “I couldn’t run as fast as I wanted to. I couldn’t push myself and my heart rate wouldn’t go up.”
Without a clear diagnosis, MacLeod opted for more running time before steadily building up to training. During one of his first sessions in August, he collapsed in a car park at Newcastle Harbour; his natural pacemaker had failed and a defibrillator was needed to restart his heart and return it to its normal rhythm. This was the first of many incidents of cardiac arrhythmia that eventually led to ablation surgery, a treatment option recommended as the best way to live his most normal life.
At that point, losing confidence in her body, she made the difficult decision to quit running altogether. “I didn’t want to take the risk and I didn’t want to go through that experience again,” she says.
Time is a great healer, though, and when his friend Drew Graham, a former elite athlete who was paralyzed in an accident in 2014, texted him offering to push him (as part of a team) in the 2023 Great North Run, he knew he couldn’t say no.
With just a handful of walks in previous years, McLeod needed to get back in the running. It also helped him regain his lost confidence.
That first year, the team crossed the line in 2:01:42. They lowered that to 1:26:09 in 2024, and in 2025 they broke the Guinness World Record for “fastest half marathon while pushing a wheelchair (male) in a team” with an impressive 1:18:02. Over three races, the team raised nearly £30,000 for Graham’s Gym Possible, a purpose-built gym for wheelchair users.
“So much is about perspective and where you are in life,” McLeod reflects. “It’s not just about running, there’s a lot more to it.”
Running as part of Puma’s Project 3 in London, he describes the marathon day as “a whirlwind from start to finish” with an amazing atmosphere. His intention was to go out with a 2:17 pace, but due to the warm conditions he changed his plan slightly. He was also influenced by the words of Loughborough’s Paddy Dever, who finished 11th.th in the elite race: 2:06:18. Dever was featured in Puma’s pre-race film and emphasized the importance of relaxing at the start rather than pushing as in a trail race.
“I thought. ‘You know what, he’s right there,’ so I took that advice and made sure I was as mellow and cool as possible, which really, really helped,” McLeod says. “If anything, I was actually too cold because I started so slowly.
“But my experience played a part there and it came back to really help me. I’ve run in hot conditions before and felt my performance drop off, so I went very conservative with it in my mind. I thought, worst case scenario, if I feel three-quarters of the way through amazing, I’ll have loads left in the tank.”
While the sport has moved on dramatically since 2016, particularly with the introduction and impact of carbon racing shoes and sophisticated nutrition strategies, some things never change. MacLeod’s trainer Alan Storey was usually direct in his post-race assessments.
MacLeod never planned to ask his former coach to contact him in London, but the third-party perspective was influential in his decision-making process. He admitted that London was a much more serious goal than his “fun” last-minute foray into the Chester Marathon in October 2025 (he ran 2:33:17) and it deserved structure and focus. He phoned a coach who had highly recommended British footballer John Beaty, and after a long conversation in which they talked about the training of his former coaches Story and John Nuttall, the latter of whom had been instrumental in his development, the coach said: “Just one question. why didn’t you contact Alan?’
“I sat there and said: He was very concerned about my heart, but I told him that I run, I played a bit of football, and that I would be careful and listen to my body.”
McLeod’s London took about 10 weeks to build, with two sessions per week. His maximum mileage was 100, but for most he averaged 72 miles a week. Storey was very responsive and adaptable in his training approach; While she preferred to avoid rest days unless absolutely necessary, she was also quick to advise him to back off if he didn’t feel ready to do a session.
“Recovery was the key,” he says, comparing his 2026 build to his 2016 training. “I used to finish a session, be exhausted, then put my shoes back on and go out again the next day. Some days I did double sessions, not this time, but years ago I would have just accepted that my legs were awful, carried on and assumed I’d be fine.
“I’m much more in tune with my body now because of what happened. I am aware of everything. If I do something really hard, I’d ideally like to recover for two days. I think you just need it more as you get older. The body just doesn’t regenerate as fast as it used to.”
Attention will now turn to the Chicago Marathon in October, McLeod’s original “goal” race. By his own admission, he exceeded what he thought was possible; His 2:19 in London destroyed the 2:24 target he had set himself at the start.
Satisfied but wanting more, he admits London was far from a perfect race. “That’s my athletic side, I start criticizing everything,” he laughs. “There are many things I can improve on. It’s not like everything went perfectly and I’m scratching my head wondering where to now. You have to reap the benefits. I think the training I did worked well. I don’t think I’ll do 100 mile highs, but I want to increase the base of the low mileage weeks.
“Alan will have me doing 5km and 10km work for a few months and having those faster times will really help too. There is also the training effect compound. I don’t have the foundation that a lot of other runners have, so I think another six months of training will really help. Even if I get a marginal improvement, I think I will.”
McLeod v2.0 is emotional as he pauses to reflect on his London Marathon experience. It wasn’t just the culmination of ten weeks of hard work, but the cumulative effect of moments far greater than the sport itself.
“I’m proud of myself,” she says. “You have to believe in yourself, you have to stand up for yourself, because you can do it.’
Finally, a lifetime and 26.2 miles later, he also closed the circle on a decade of unfinished business.
