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Matthew O'Connor

@oco81

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Building brands. Doing hard things.
Business • Endurance Athlete • Life
For the kids who can’t. 🧡
Fuelled by @appliednutrition

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I’ve never been good at fitting into one box.

I build brands for a living.
I love making things that didn’t exist before.

I’m a dad first.

I do stupid challenges and occasionally convince other people to do equally stupid things with me.

I love good ideas, great people, big challenges and finding out what happens when you commit to something before you have any idea if you can actually do it.

And increasingly, I want to use all of those things for something bigger than myself.

That’s what you’ll find here.

The work.
The training.
The ridiculous ideas.
The people I love.
And whatever we decide to build or take on next.

Build things.
Do hard things.
Love your people.

And if you’ve got something that can help somebody else, use it. 🤍 by @oco81

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13 hours ago

Persective changes the conversation you have with yourself.

When there’s no real purpose behind something, stopping is always an option.

But when the purpose matters enough?

You stop asking whether you feel like getting up and going again.

You just get up and do what needs to be done.

This was day 3. A long way still to go. 🧡 taken in Lichfield by @oco81

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2 days ago

OUTTAKES: PART 1 😂

Turns out if you put two idiots on the road for 9 days and film absolutely everything, you end up with quite a lot of this.

And this is only Day 2. 😂 by @oco81

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3 days ago

Some people just refuse to stay down.

Those are my kind of people. 🧡 by @oco81

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4 days ago

We said we’d run 400 miles.
We ran 400 miles.

I said I’d dye my hair blonde if we did.

Unfortunately, we’re men of our word. 😂

Do what you said you were going to do.

Even when, in hindsight, it was a f*cking terrible idea. 😂 by @oco81

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5 days ago

Going through the mountain of footage from the last nine days today and stumbled across this. 🧡

Not sure there’s a bigger compliment we could receive, from a man we couldn’t respect more.

@mrashleycain knows what it means to suffer for something bigger than yourself.

He knows what it means to keep moving when everything in you is telling you to stop.

And over the last few years, we’ve been lucky enough to go from running alongside him, to working alongside him, to being able to call him our brother.

So hearing him say this about me and Joe means way more than he will ever realise.

Love you brother. 🧡

And apparently, buried amongst the absolute chaos of the last nine days, there are quite a few moments like this that we haven’t even seen ourselves yet. 😂
All thanks to @b33mah

The running might be finished.
The Road to 400 stories definitely aren’t.

There’s a LOT more to come. 🧡 by @oco81

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6 days ago

Do hard things with good people.

The kind who keep showing up when things get dark.

The kind who would never quit on you.

The kind who’ll suffer beside you, laugh with you through the absolute agony of it, and somehow make you believe you’ve still got more to give.

The kind you’d do it all again with tomorrow.

I’d choose the same people in every lifetime. 🧡 by @oco81

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6 days ago

I don’t think we could have imagined a more meaningful way for this journey to end. 🧡

After 400+ miles, we ran through those doors into a room filled with our people.

Our families. Our friends. The people who ran with us, supported us, believed in us and carried us through the last nine days.

Ash and Saf’s families. The Foundation family. The friends and supporters who have stood behind this cause.

And, most importantly, families at the very heart of why all of this matters.

Families whose children have fought cancer and come out the other side.

Families who are still fighting it today.

And families carrying the unimaginable weight of having lost their child.

Standing in that room, surrounded by all of them, on the 5th anniversary of The Azaylia Foundation, put every single mile into perspective.

The love in there was unbelievable.

So was the energy, the pain, the hope, the pride and the determination to keep fighting for these children.

For nine days, we had the privilege of carrying Azaylia’s name across the country.

But really, that’s all we’ve ever tried to do.

Take what we have, use what we can, and do something with it.

We can run.

We can tell a story.

We can use our voices.

So that’s what we did.

For the kids who can’t.

For the families still fighting.

For the families who have already endured more than any family ever should.

And for a little girl whose name, five years later, is still bringing thousands of people together and inspiring them to act. 🧡

Azaylia.

It was an honour to carry your name.

And something tells me we’re nowhere near finished yet. 🧡 taken in West Midlands Safari Park by @oco81

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8 days ago

We thought we were going to have to carry each other through this.

Turns out, thousands of you were carrying us too. 🧡

To every person who donated.

Every person who shared a post, sent a message, picked up the phone or shouted some encouragement from the side of the road.

To everyone who laced up and ran a mile with us. Or 5. Or 10. Or considerably more than they planned to. 😂

To the people who trusted us with their own stories. Stories of their children, their families, cancer, loss, hope and everything in between.

To every business that backed us.

Every friend and family member who quietly did the things nobody saw.

And every single person who simply watched along and willed us forward from wherever you were.

Thank you.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about community throughout this challenge.

I don’t think we fully understood what that word meant until now.

Somewhere along the way, this stopped feeling like something me and Joe were doing.

It became something we were all doing together.

You carried the message into places we could never reach.

You reminded us why we were doing it when things got tough.

And you showed us what can happen when enough people decide that somebody else’s fight matters to them too.

We’ll never be able to properly thank every single one of you.

But I hope you know that you were part of this.

Every mile. Every share. Every donation. Every message. Every step alongside us.

All of it mattered and still does.

And maybe that’s the thing I hope we all take away from this.

You don’t have to run 400 miles to make a difference.

Just show up for people. For each other.

Give something. Share something. Run beside someone. Pick up the phone. Tell somebody’s story. Do whatever you can with whatever you’ve got.

Because after everything we’ve experienced over the last few months, I think we know one thing for certain.

People are capable of incredible things when we do them together. 🧡

From the bottom of our hearts,

Thank you for carrying this with us.

Matt & Joe 🧡 by @oco81

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8 days ago

There will never be words to describe this feeling.

Today though…
Emotional
Grateful
(a little bit sore)
And ridiculously proud.

What an incredible journey 🧡🦁

For you, Azaylia.

Any donations massively appreciated!

Links in bio! by @oco81

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9 days ago

400+ miles.
16+ back to back marathons.
4 deliveries of joy.
9 days.
Incredible people.
Countless memories that will last a lifetime.

Thankyou Azaylia 🧡 by @oco81

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10 days ago

Reunited with our inspirations after 8 long days on the road.

8 long days of pain.

Any donations massively appreciated!

Links in bio!
And our final drop of Joy Jars at Birmingham Children’s Hospital 🧡

Last 5 miles now…

Let’s Go Champ! by @oco81

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10 days ago