John Stanton receives honorary degree from U of A
The running guru and founder of the Running Room was awarded a honorary doctor of law from the University of Alberta.
John Stanton, running guru and founder of the Running Room, can now add “Doctor of Law” to his many achievements.
Last week, the University of Alberta honoured Stanton with a doctor of law degree at the school’s commencement ceremony.
Stanton spoke to graduates about the importance of loving what one does with one’s life: “spend your career doing something that you are intensely passionate about-and you will never know if you’re working or playing and never have to work a day in your life.”
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Stanton started the Running Room after a massive life style change built around running altered his outlook. According to Nick Lees, co-author with Stanton on a training manual for runners and long time friend of Stanton, the Running Room founder went from smoking over two packs a day and being ‘a chubby guy’ at 40 to running a 2:48 marathon at age 41.
For Stanton, it all started with a certain amount of humility — when his wife Bev urged him to run with their young son in a 2K race back in 1980. Stanton, out of shape and lacking any knowledge about running, ran the event in cut-off jeans and a pair of dress shoes. One year later, he’d lost the extra weight, quit smoking and had committed to a life style that incorporated running daily and eating properly.
Now the president of a company that has 108 stores in Canada and 12 in the United States, Stanton also functions as a sort of lifestyle guru for thousands of people across North America, doing speaking engagements and appearing at running and walking events from coast to coast. As he said to 6,624 students that were in attendance at the ceremony, “Success isn’t defined by dollars, but by the people you’ve touched along the way.”
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