John McAvoy sat in a holding cell at Belmarsh prison in 2007, waiting to be processed and already planning his escape. At 24, he had been arrested for firearms offenses and conspiracy to commit robbery. With a prior three-year sentence for gun possession, he knew he was facing a long time behind bars. Believing his only way out was through the hospital wing, he spent the day lying to guards, pretending he had a concussion from his arrest. When the cell doors opened, he assumed he was headed to the hospital. Instead, he was handcuffed and taken to a high-security unit.
Seeing the unit made the gravity of his situation clear. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to see daylight for a long, long time,'” he recalled.
The Belmarsh high-security unit is a prison within a prison. To reach it, inmates are bused through the main facility, past a special gate and perimeter wall. An airlock system with remotely operated doors prevents hostage-taking. The unit’s spur is small, with about eight cells, low ceilings, and fluorescent lighting. “We used to call it the submarine,” McAvoy remembers. “There’s no real natural sunlight. One of the wings has no windows at all. It’s very, very claustrophobic.” Although there was an exercise yard, security wire blocked the sky. His fellow inmates included radical preacher Abu Hamza and the failed 21/7 bombers.
“This is the end of the world,” a prison governor told him. And it could have been—but for McAvoy, it was a beginning: the unlikely first step toward becoming the endurance athlete he is today. By his release in 2012, after nearly a decade in prison, he had broken three world records and seven British records in rowing, all from the prison gym.
McAvoy was born in London in the early 1980s and raised by his mother and five aunts alongside his sister. He never met his biological father, who died a month before he was born. His mother worked as a florist, and though money was tight, she did everything to provide for her children. McAvoy was an energetic, sometimes mischievous boy. His childhood home backed onto Crystal Palace Park in southeast London, where he would build camps with friends and sneak fish from the lake.
When McAvoy was eight, his mother introduced her new partner, Billy Tobin. Aside from occasional uncles or cousins, Tobin was the first constant male figure in his life. Unbeknownst to McAvoy at the time, Tobin was an armed robber. McAvoy found him captivating, remembering his charisma, shiny black shoes, and expensive clothes. When Tobin said goodbye that first day, he patted McAvoy on the head, called him a good boy, and gave him a £20 note—the first paper money McAvoy had ever held. Tobin soon became his stepfather. “It was just a really powerful experience,” McAvoy says.
As a driven teenager, McAvoy was full of ambition. “I grew up in the era of Margaret Thatcher. It was all about the ‘me.’ I wanted to own British Telecom. I wanted to be a billionaire.”
By age 14, he was entrusted with watching duffle bags stuffed with £250,000 in cash and was paid £1,000 for the job.
As he grew older, McAvoy learned more about the criminal notoriety in his family. His uncle, Micky McAvoy, was part of the gang arrested for the Brink’s-Mat heist—one of Britain’s biggest robberies, involving £26 million in gold bullion, diamonds, and cash.Stolen from a warehouse at Heathrow Airport. John McAvoy was 12 when he watched Fool’s Gold, the 1992 TV film based on the robbery, in which Sean Bean played his uncle. “It was one of the big moments of my childhood,” he recalls, “seeing Sean Bean sitting on £26 million worth of gold bars, and it all being glamorized.” Soon after, he became involved in his stepfather’s criminal activities—at 14, Tobin had him guard duffel bags filled with £250,000 in cash on their kitchen table until someone came to collect them. McAvoy was paid £1,000 for the job.
When McAvoy turned 16, he left school and bought a gun. Tobin was angry—he didn’t want McAvoy doing anything rash. He took the weapon away and took his stepson under his wing. “I didn’t really have friends my own age,” McAvoy says. “From 15, I was hanging out with men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s.” They were all wealthy criminals. “I spent as much time as I could around them because I wanted to learn from them and understand how that world worked.”
Tobin put McAvoy to work tracking cash-delivery vans, scouting targets, and passing information up the chain. McAvoy was a shy teenager who had trouble communicating, but Tobin taught him to be assertive. He also taught him never to trust women, never to talk in houses because they might be bugged, and to only trust people in his inner circle. He told him never to show weakness and to despise authority. Anyone in the system—government, judges, police—was seen as the enemy. “There was always this anti-authority tone and talk about how corrupt the system was. I didn’t realize I was absorbing all that.” There was also a strict code of conduct: “You don’t hurt women, children, or old people.”
McAvoy knew prison was a real risk in his line of work. “I think it’s always in the back of your mind, but you think you’ll be the one to live that Hollywood life, right? The one who sails off into the sunset.” He was being followed by police—he’d found tracking devices on his car—and was always alert to surveillance. “You’d sometimes spot the same person a couple of times.”
McAvoy’s first arrest came at 18, after police foiled a robbery estimated at £250,000. He led police on a motorway chase, abandoned the car (and his gun) in southeast London, stripped down to his shorts (he’d been told to always wear shorts so he wouldn’t look out of place while running), and continued on foot. After jumping over garden fences, he thought he’d escaped. He found a phone booth and called a friend, but armed police swarmed him and arrested him. McAvoy was sentenced to five years for firearm possession. He served three, including one in solitary confinement.
His second arrest came in 2005, two years after his release. At 22, McAvoy was on his way to rob a security van carrying cash when he noticed an unmarked police car heading toward him. It was an ambush. Police had been investigating McAvoy and his associates for months. As armed officers poured out of three police cars, McAvoy sped off through the streets of south London.
“I just remember this internal dialogue in my head, thinking, ‘I’m not going back to prison.’ And honestly, I was fully prepared to die in that moment to get away from them.” After mounting a pavement and hitting a lamppost, McAvoy abandoned the car and ran on foot, determined to outrun the helicopter above. He reached a dead end. Police caught up, aiming their guns at him. “I genuinely thought at that moment, ‘I’m gone,'” he said.James McAvoy pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery and possession of firearms with intent to commit robbery. Three days later, he was moved to Belmarsh Prison, where he received a discretionary life sentence.
His uncle Micky, who served 16 years for the Brink’s-Mat robbery, advised him to stay connected to the outside world. McAvoy followed this by listening to the radio and watching the news, avoiding prison politics. He maintained a mindset focused on getting out and reclaiming his life as soon as possible.
His mother visited him once, a process that took weeks for the prison governor to approve. She drove to the prison, then took a bus to the High Security Unit, where they spoke through armored glass. A prison officer monitored their conversation, prohibiting coded language or covering their mouths, with cameras trained on their faces. During the visit, Abu Hamza was in the next booth for a legal meeting. After 90 minutes with his mother, McAvoy realized how distressing the experience was for her and decided not to see her again until his release nearly eight years later.
Initially, McAvoy was confused about being housed with terrorists and expressed this to a Ministry of Justice visitor. He was told it was to prevent any escape attempts. He felt dehumanized, with no focus on rehabilitation, only on his identity as a permanent criminal.
Driven by goals, McAvoy read extensively and maintained his fitness with “cell circuits”—thousands of sit-ups, step-ups, and push-ups. He embraced solitude and never struggled with boredom or mental health issues, keeping his mind from wandering too far into the future.
After two years at Belmarsh, he was transferred to Full Sutton, a maximum-security prison in Yorkshire, and later to Lowdham Grange, a category B facility in Nottinghamshire. At first, his plan was to behave until placed in a lower-security prison and then escape to Europe to live as a criminal.
However, three years into his sentence, his friend Aaron died in a car crash in the Netherlands while fleeing after an ATM robbery. McAvoy saw the CCTV footage on the news, which plunged him into the lowest point of his life. This tragedy forced him to reevaluate his life and circumstances, making him feel trapped and desperate for change.
Seeking an escape from his environment and fellow inmates, McAvoy turned to the prison gym. There, he noticed another prisoner rowing for a children’s charity, exceeding the usual gym time. Inspired, McAvoy asked the gym officer if he could do the same, marking the beginning of his rowing journey. For him, rowing became a form of meditation, with its rhythmic motion providing solace and focus.I didn’t know anything about technique, but when I was on that rowing machine, it felt like I created a portal that transported me out of prison. Everyone left me alone, and no one spoke to me. I was lost in my thoughts, and it became a form of meditation—very rhythmic. Looking back, he believes he had discovered the runner’s high. “It was as if the machine became an extension of my body,” he recalls.
McAvoy rowed his first million meters in just one month. He requested to do another sponsored row, and then another. Someone then suggested he row the equivalent of crossing the Atlantic Ocean—5,000 kilometers. “I thought it would be a great achievement to say I’d done that,” he said. One evening, nearing the end of his latest charity effort, he pushed through a grueling 10,000 meters. A prison officer named Darren Davis noticed his impressive performance and, a few days later, brought him all the records for indoor rowing.
In just over a year, McAvoy broke three world records and seven British records for indoor rowing. He shattered the fastest marathon time by seven minutes, set the record for the longest continuous row at 45 hours, and covered the farthest distance in 24 hours—263,396 meters.
Initially, McAvoy resented Davis, seeing him as part of the system he wanted no part of. But Davis’s consistent interest in his progress won him over. “He saw my talent and made me believe I could achieve something more in life,” McAvoy explained. Davis was there for every record-breaking attempt, even taking time off to coach him during long rows.
“He changed my life in prison,” McAvoy says. “He helped me purely out of kindness, with no ulterior motive. It was a selfless act from someone who genuinely wanted to support me.”
Today, Davis is one of McAvoy’s closest friends. “After my friend died, I vowed never to commit another crime, but I don’t know where that path would have led without Darren’s belief in me and the opportunities he gave me to use my gift,” McAvoy reflects.
While in prison, McAvoy began studying for a personal trainer qualification. After being transferred to Sudbury, a lower-security prison, he worked as a trainer at a Fitness First gym, commuting six days a week. Between training clients, he studied endurance athletes. He was granted parole in 2012, after nearly eight years, and his first act upon release was to visit his friend Aaron’s grave.
McAvoy’s goal was clear: become a professional athlete. At 30, he knew time was limited, so he trained for a triathlon, joining a rowing club, learning to swim via YouTube, and buying his first bike. He has since become a respected endurance athlete, competing in ultramarathons, triathlons, and Ironman events.
“Years of solitude and isolation in prison shaped me as an athlete,” he says. “Having been in a segregation cell, everything else now feels like a privilege and a luxury.”
His most memorable race was his first Ironman in Bolton in 2013, which he had watched from prison and trained for in just six weeks after his release. “I remember feeling an immense sense of achievement,” he recalls.”That was one of my best performances considering how little time I trained for it. And Darren was there at the finish line.”
At first, McAvoy kept his past hidden from the people he met through training. But when rumors started spreading at his rowing club—where had this incredible athlete been all this time?—people began searching for him online. He chose to share his story through a blog, initially fearing criticism. He worried people would say he’d done terrible things and didn’t deserve his current life, or that he shouldn’t be admired. However, he takes care not to make his past seem glamorous. In 2016, his memoir was published, and he’s received many offers to adapt his life into a film, but he has always declined.
Beyond sports, McAvoy advocates for prison reform. He believes that while some prisoners are deeply involved in organized crime, most are not, and he genuinely thinks they can be helped. As a teen, he idealized the criminal lifestyle. “It’s a toxic, awful world. Once you’re in, it’s hard to escape… That’s why I relate to kids who end up in prison for gang activities—I understand how they get pulled in. It’s tough for them to see beyond that until they grow up and mature.”
Through his reform efforts, he’s advised the Ministry of Justice and Theresa May’s policy team at No. 10. “Prevention is better than cure,” he says. “If we invest more in people before they go to prison, we have a better chance of keeping them out.” He recalls talking to the chair of Brentford FC during a parkrun in a prison, where he claimed he could halve the criminal justice costs for young offenders. When asked how, he replied, “I’d send all these kids to the best private school in the UK.”
The first time he was allowed to travel abroad, he went to Lake Annecy in France for a training camp with triathletes. It was his first visit to the mountains. “It was the most amazing feeling ever,” he says. “I was free again. That was probably one of the happiest days of my life.”
Now, McAvoy has one clear motivation: helping others. “It might sound cheesy, but I’m in a privileged position now, having come from nothing. I was in a dark place and managed to get out because I had the will, drive, and determination, plus the support that unlocked everything for me.”
If he wanted, McAvoy could make a good living as a professional speaker. Instead, he focuses most of his energy on the Alpine Run Project, working with young people. This six-month fitness program ends with the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc race in the French Alps. He started the project in 2023 with partners like Nike, which has sponsored him since 2017 after an executive read his story. The idea came to him over seven years ago: taking underprivileged kids from cities on trail runs and exposing them to new opportunities and the Olympics.A former athlete wanted to share a place that had deeply transformed him with young people. In its first year, 14 kids participated. Now, that number has grown to over 500. He enthusiastically recounts the stories of the children he’s met through the project, visibly excited about the difference the program has made in their lives—and his own.
It seems he’s striving to be the mentor he never had when his stepfather entered his life at a vulnerable age. “I have no doubt that if someone like Richard Branson or an Olympic athlete had come into my life back then, my path would have been completely different,” he reflects.
McAvoy’s uncle Micky passed away in 2023. The last time McAvoy saw his stepfather was in 2002 at Belmarsh Prison. During a transfer, McAvoy recognized his voice and called out to him. They managed to persuade the guards to let them meet. “I remember seeing him there, handcuffed to a prison officer half his age,” he recalls. “It was surreal—thinking back to when I was a child, all the years we spent together, and then seeing him in that state, looking so powerless. That was our final meeting.” His stepfather, Tobin, remains incarcerated.
When asked if he holds any resentment toward his stepfather, McAvoy answers firmly, “No. It might sound strange, but I felt loved. Truly. I wasn’t mistreated or forced into anything. Were they encouraging? Not intentionally at first, but they were careless without realizing it. I always made my own choices.”
As for regrets about his past, he admits, “I regret my actions because they hurt others, but I don’t regret the ten years I spent in prison. I learned so much about myself, and if necessary, I’d go through that journey again.”
For more details, visit the Alpine Run Project or check their Instagram.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of helpful and concise FAQs about John McAvoys story of transformation
Frequently Asked Questions John McAvoys Journey
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 Who is John McAvoy
John McAvoy is a former armed robber from the UK who turned his life around to become a professional Ironman triathlete and motivational speaker
2 What kind of crime was he involved in
He was a highlevel armed robber part of a criminal network that carried out a series of serious robberies
3 Why did he decide to change his life
He had a moment of clarity and deep regret while serving a prison sentence realizing he was wasting his life and wanted to make something positive of it
4 How did he discover his talent for sports in prison
He started using the prison gym to cope with his sentence A prison officer noticed his incredible physical potential and encouraged him to take up indoor rowing where he quickly broke a British record
5 What is he doing now
He is now a fulltime professional triathlete competing in Ironman events and he shares his story to inspire others to change their lives
Advanced Detailed Questions
6 What was the turning point for him in prison
While in his cell he saw a documentary about the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii He was captivated by the extreme physical challenge and saw it as a new positive outlaw path he could dedicate his life to
7 How did he transition from rowing to triathlon
After breaking rowing records he was released from prison on license He knew he wanted to pursue an even greater challenge and was drawn to the threediscipline nature of triathlon which required a complete mental and physical transformation
8 What were the biggest challenges he faced after his release
Beyond the stigma of being an exconvict he faced the immense physical challenge of learning to swim and cycle from scratch to compete at a professional level in triathlon
9 Can you give an example of his athletic success
Yes he has competed professionally in the Ironman circuit racing against the worlds best One of his most notable achievements was winning his age group at the Ironman European Championship in Frankfurt
