I was in this cell and I phoned up my cousin
and he went, "Look, Aaron's... died."
And I knew that was me done.
I didn't want this life no more.
It's like a little girl said to me the other day.
She said, "Why have you got a Barbie bike?"
That's a little bit of motivation is for training a bit.
Otherwise, you look like a fucking idiot.
Take care, mate. I'll see you tomorrow.
Lovely to meet you mate, and I'll see you later, mate.
Lovely to meet you as well. Take care, yeah.
- John! - How are you?
Nice to finally meet you, how you doing?
I'm good, thank you, I'm really good. This is Nicky by the way.
Nice to see you, John. Mate, it was lovely to meet you.
- See you at some point tomorrow. - Yeah.
I looked round and like the whole table
just locked onto me.
"Are you John McAvoy?" And I said, "Yeah."
In fact I started getting embarrassed
because everyone was looking at me like, "who the fuck is this fella?"
I grew up in South London.
My actual, real Dad passed away before I was born.
When I got to 8 years old, this man came into our lives.
He was the first male that I looked up to.
It transpired that he was a prolific armed robber.
He had five acquittals at the Old Bailey.
He was a millionaire when he was 21 years old,
he'd been shot by the police two times.
He was a serious criminal, like, involved in organized crime.
Being a young boy, I was completely blinkered by it,
then I made the decision, when I was about 14 years old,
that, that was the path I was going to travel down.
Criminality was normal.
The system, hating it, the police, detesting them.
government, they were all the enemy.
When I was in Spain,
I was basically living like a million miles an hour.
It was all about money.
Money, money, money, money.
Big houses, nice cars, watches.
The more money you had, the more successful you was.
I was still committing crime,
and my best friend was with me, Aaron.
And we thought we'd made it, to be perfectly honest with you.
I only come back here temporarily for a week. That was it.
And there was a guy called Kevin, one of my stepdad's best friends.
He said to me: "Do you wanna do this robbery?"
What I didn't realize was ...
...he had a 100-man surveillance team
watching him for two months.
I got ambushed.
These guys just...
it was like a tsunami of police
running towards me with machine guns.
They were screaming "Get down! Get down!"
pointing the gun at me,
and I really did think I was going to be killed.
I got two life sentences with a minimum tariff of five years.
The judge believed that, because of my links
to serious and organized crime,
that the likelihood of me being rehabilitated was very low.
I went to Belmarsh prison.
I was in a high security unit there.
And then I spent the next year of my life,
locked in this tiny 6 by 11 foot cell.
And one day, I phoned up my cousin.
And he went: "look, Aaron's died."
One night, he decided to commit a crime, for money.
And it ended his life.
I've never experienced emotion like it.
And I had a watch on my wrist that was worth like £16,000.
And I had it in prison, because I was so arrogant.
And I looked and I thought how pathetic it was.
And I knew, from that moment, I didn't want this life no more.
I needed to remove myself from that environment
but I was trapped.
I had to start off doing these circuits in my cell.
It made me feel alive.
So, I then, started going down the prison gym more.
Never been on a rowing machine in my life. 26 years old.
First time I got on it, I rowed nearly 20 miles.
And I remember my back was aching, my arms were aching.
But, when I was on that rowing machine,
it completely took me out of prison.
And one day, a prison officer, called Darren,
looked over my shoulder and he went, "Wow."
I come back a couple days later,
and he gave me all these pieces of paper.
And it had all these world and British records
on the rowing machine.
And I went down that prison library,
and I started reading autobiographies of all these Olympians.
And it opened up my eyes completely
and I was like, I'm like that person with the will to win,
and the drive and the focus.
I asked Darren if I could attempt the world record
for the most amount of distance rowed in 24 hours.
I set off at 5 O' clock in the evening.
I had never been in this territory in my life.
When I got to the early hours of the morning,
I was in such a dark place mentally.
I was so tired.
I broke the world record.
I broke it by thirteen miles.
Darren said to me that day, "You have got the ability to suffer."
He went, "If you come out of prison and you come back in here,
"it'll be the biggest travesty I've ever seen as a prison officer."
Everything I knew, up to that point, was crime.
And I completely turned my back on it.
It opened up my eyes to a whole new world.
I wanted to be a professional athlete.
I watched this program called 'Ironman', I was in awe.
And I realized that I could still turn professional at any age.
So, I thought, that's what I'm gonna do.
I went off, bought a bike, it was too big for me.
I taught myself how to swim off YouTube videos,
and my social circle completely changed overnight.
It's really great to see him doing so well.
Lots of people gave up on me and Darren didn't.
He was a prison officer and I was a prisoner.
Without him doing that for me, I wouldn't be here today.
And now I'm an avid believer in that,
if you can help people, you should help people.
And that's why I'm so passionate now
about going into schools and talking to kids,
and going to prisons, and demonstrating
that you can achieve amazing things with your life.
The only thing that's important in life
is what you believe.
Not what other people think you can and can't do,
it's what you believe in your heart.
Me turning professional,
will allow me to demonstrate to these children,
that you can achieve absolutely anything with your lives.
And that's what motivates me every single day.
In an Ironman, you're gonna suffer.
It's going to take nine, 10 hours.
Being confined to a cell for 24 hours a day,
you have a real high boredom tolerance.
Which is good when you do an endurance sport.
You're gonna ache, hurt,
your body's gonna scream for you to stop.
But, when you've nearly been shot by the police,
and been locked up in maximum security units,
that's challenging-- to get through that psychologically.
2016 was a massive step up in my performance.
I was one of the highest ranked GB athletes
at the European championships,
so I decided to do Ironman UK.
It was my chance to turn professional.
I'll give yous some wise tips, here.
When you stick this stuff in your goggles,
always remember to wash them out afterwards.
If you don't, you'll end up going blind.
Which I've done before. I've stuck that on
and it's gone in my eyes.
It is a bit cold to be honest, it's not as warm as the Med.
An Ironman is a 3.8-kilometer swim,
it's a 180-kilometer bike ride,
and then you get off, and then you run a marathon.
Tomorrow morning, it'll be like a hive of activity.
People will be like very, sort of, just very nervous.
My stress is more not reaching my goal.
Because like, it's such a long distance,
like, so much stuff can go wrong.
How you feeling, John?
Feeling a bit tired, to be honest.
We'll just have to go out there and see what's what on the day.
Roll the dice again.
First, new message.
John, you've done an incredible amount
for everyone else this year so, let enjoy this one for yourself.
I'm so proud to share your incredible journey,
and I'm looking forward to seeing that massive smile
on the finishing line and a McAvoy hug.
Whatever happens, it's all been amazing,
and I'll always be here for you, buddy.
I knew I needed to go sub nine hours and 20 minutes to turn professional.
When I got out the swim,
I could see that I was well down from where I should have been.
I knew I just had to grin it out.
I just wanna see you run over that finish line
with your head held high.
You're amazing. I'm such a proud man, mate.
What an incredible journey you've been on.
I didn't feel great.
My hamstring injury started coming back.
I felt very sluggish.
When you get to that point, when you get into a dark place,
just remember what you told me.
it won't last, you'll get through it and you'll come out the other side.
On the run, when I probably got to about 20 mile,
my hamstring felt like it would just snap.
Come on, John!
I always drawback to those words
that Darren said to me in that prison gym:
You have got the ability to suffer.
- Go on, John. - Go on, John.
I knew I needed to go sub nine hours and 20 minutes
to have a chance of getting the eight percent,
to turn professional.
I knew the first 20, 30K on the bike that that was not gonna happen.
And then it was just all about that self motivation,
that not giving in, and not quitting.
Like I couldn't stop.
I can't quit because it's not in me, I cannot do it.
Like, I couldn't stand up in front of a school full of children
and turn up and say,
"Don't ever give up." and "Chase your dreams.",
and then suddenly, when my back's up against the wall,
I just throw the towel in and say "I give up. It's too difficult."
or "I can't be bothered today." Like, I couldn't physically do it.
Unless I passed out and collapsed, I couldn't physically stop.
The years of my life that I wasted in prison,
I take a lot of positives out of that situation.
I'm on my own journey now.
I want to prove nothing's impossible in life.
I am no different to any person that's in prison.
Anyone can change and change is possible for every single person.
It took me to sit in a prison cell,
to wake up an ability in my body that I possessed
from when I was your age.
I am as driven, to stop and prevent as many young kids as I possibly can
from going down the road that I did.
You can achieve amazing things with your life.
Like, there's a big world out there,
and it doesn't matter where you come from.
It's where you end up that counts.
You just need to keep persevering at it,
no matter how tough things get.
It isn't going to be easy. And you have set backs,
and you won't achieve your objective the first time round.
But, that's, that's life and when you accept that,
you just think, even when it does get tough,
and your back is against the wall,
you just keep moving forward all the time,
amazing things will end up happening.
I will achieve that goal.
It might take another year, it might take me another two years.
But, I will eventually end up doing it
because I won't stop.