'I'm a CEO running 52 marathons this year - and this is what it's teaching me'

The 38-year-old is now reaching the halfway point of his Marathon of a CEO challenge, having clocked over 600 miles in the past six months. He’s not doing it to chase medals or praise, he’s aiming to raise £3,500 for children’s cancer charity PASIC, which helped a close friend of his during a time of unimaginable difficulty.

It’s also a personal challenge for Dr Beer, to push himself beyond his previous capabilities. It's a testament to focus, drive and resilience, all qualities, he says, that have helped him develop as an individual and a leader.

“I wanted to take on something bigger than a personal fitness goal,” explains Dr Beer, who is CEO of Leeds-based sustainability consultancy Tunley Environmental.

“Something that reflects what it means to lead in the climate era. Something that pushes mental and physical boundaries in the same way that solving global challenges does. Running one marathon is hard. Running one every week for a year? That’s a level of consistent discipline that mirrors what many of us face in leadership, in life and in business.”

Every marathon so far has taught Dr Beer something new, he claims. Some were smooth, others were painful and a few genuinely miserable. He’s thrown up en-route, run out of water, and exhausted his supply of electrolytes mid-run. But he’s carried on.

"I’ve run through fatigue, self-doubt and sore knees. And I’ve finished them all,” he says. “That’s the magic of this challenge: you find out what you’re really capable of when your brain is screaming ‘stop’ and your purpose says ‘keep going’."

That message isn’t just for runners, he says. It’s for CEOs, business owners, students, and anyone staring at something that looks too big to take on.

It’s also a message that Dr Beer has carried with him in his career to date. After time as an engineering manager, he started work on Tunley 18 months before committing to the business full-time. It was founded in 2017 as Tunley Engineering, supporting manufacturing companies to improve their engineering departments.

When a customer asked for help with a net-zero project, the focus shifted and now Tunley Environmental helps organisations around the world to navigate sustainability and ensure they are compliant with current and evolving environmental regulations.

Dr Beer says there’s numerous parallels between running the firm and running the marathons. “You do it behind closed doors and people don’t see the work that goes into it,” he says, for one.

“Sustainability programmes are not sprints,” he adds. “They’re generally longer term plans to implement properly. I always use metaphors now around long-distance running. I’ve enjoyed explaining to customers how it links and I’ve got a few CEOs from customers who are now booked in to do marathons with me.”

Dr Beer continues to invite CEOs and business leaders to join him for a marathon of their own, with Tunley Environmental offering participants a branded t-shirt, personal journal and a video summary of their run.

The initiative aims to inspire leadership that is both physically and environmentally active, he says, whilst also shaping his own headship by reinforcing the idea that perseverance through hardship leads to growth.

Last year, Dr Beer ran an ultra-marathon for PASIC, which offers emotional, financial and practical support to families facing cancer. He also set himself a personal challenge to run 30km a week, and this year, wanted to push himself further.

He’s enjoyed having something to focus on outside of work, and testing his own mental resilience as he works to cover a total of 2,194km over the course of the year. “I’ve found the whole process very stressful, very demanding and really quite rewarding,” he says.

He prefers to run off-road, alongside a waterway in local countryside. But sometimes, it’s laps in urban areas – and they can be the most testing.

“There is nothing more mentally boring than doing 13 laps of the same loop,” says Dr Beer. "And you know that at lap nine you could just go home and tell everyone you’ve done it. No one would know. For me, it builds a level of really good mental strength and resilience within you, which I think all companies need now.”

“Personally, I feel very good running down the street on the way back from doing a marathon knowing I’ve done it,” he adds. “Running away from the house, I often think this is going to suck but when I get back, I love that feeling…I think running is such a good way to get away from the noise of life.”

We all have our own marathon to run, Dr Beer believes, “a challenge that pushes us, humbles us and reveals what we’re truly made of”.

“For me, that marathon is both literal and symbolic,” he says. “It's about doing what I never thought I could and inviting others to do the same. We have to keep showing up, for our planet, our people and our purpose.”

To support the Marathon of a CEO campaign, visit gofundme.com/f/one-ceo-one-year-52-marathons-endless-impact

To track Dr Beer’s progress, visit tunley-environmental.com/marathon-of-a-ceo