CHRIS TIMMS is an ultramarathon runner, Deputy Head of Dulwich College Singapore, founder of the Singapore Falcons Running Club and father to Bella, Isaac and Emilia. Ahead of Father’s Day, he talks about what running has taught him, the joy of raising three great kids, and why he’s happiest watching them turn into their own people.
How has becoming a father changed the way you think about success, in sport and in life?
More than I expected, honestly. For years I measured success the way a lot of young athletes do: race times, league tables, medals, rankings, PBs. I still love a hard target, and I haven’t lost the competitive streak, but at some point the whole thing quietly reordered itself. I couldn’t tell you exactly when. Maybe it was becoming a parent, maybe it was just getting older, probably a bit of both.
These days when I think about success, the achievements aren’t the first thing that come to mind. People are. I think about whether my kids are happy. Whether they are resilient. Whether they’ve got the confidence to be themselves and the nerve to keep going when something gets hard.
A lot of what actually matters can’t be measured, which took me an embarrassingly long time to work out. There’s no stopwatch for kindness and nobody hands you a medal for being a good friend.
Running keeps teaching me the same thing. The finish line is rarely the part I remember. It’s the friends I made in training, the grim days that toughened me up, the people who showed up when it mattered. That’s what I want the kids to understand. Success isn’t beating the person next to you. It’s being a bit better than you were yesterday and giving others a hand to do the same.
What lessons from running do you hope your children carry with them, long after they’ve stopped caring about race times?
What I love about running is how honest it is. It doesn’t care about your excuses or your good intentions. It rewards turning up, day after day, usually when no one’s watching. Improvement is almost never dramatic. It’s slow and unglamorous, and then one day you realise you’ve come a long way. I’d take that lesson over most things I could teach them.
We’ve built a world that loves instant results, but the things actually worth having take time. Confidence, trust, real friendships, getting good at anything: none of it arrives overnight. Running teaches patience, and it teaches humility too, because however fit you get there’s always someone quicker and always another hill.
The biggest thing, though, is community. People assume running is a solitary sport. My experience has been the opposite. Some of my closest friendships started in trainers, and I’ve lost count of the times I’ve watched total strangers cheer each other on and celebrate someone else’s good day. It’s reinforced something I really believe: we’re stronger together than we are on our own. I hope the kids pick that up. That you build people up rather than tear them down, that everyone’s got something to offer, and that belonging matters. Whether it’s a family, a friendship, a school or a club, life’s just better when people feel they’re part of something.
And I hope they never lose the appetite for adventure. Some of my favourite memories with Bella, Isaac and Emilia are muddy shoes, bike rides, long walks and being outside together. None of it had anything to do with performance and everything to do with just being together.
What goes through your mind when you watch Isaac getting closer to catching you as a runner?
Beyond a quiet worry about my bank balance? Enormous pride.
A few years ago, I told Isaac I’d give him a thousand dollars the day he beat me. At the time it felt like a fairly safe bet. In hindsight it may turn out to be the most expensive bit of motivation I’ve ever handed out.
What’s been brilliant is watching how he’s got there. You celebrate the results as a parent, of course you do, but it’s the attitude behind them that’s made me proud. I’ve watched him be disappointed, work back from injury, and discover the hard way that progress isn’t a straight line. Those are lessons that go well beyond running.
Every parent reaches the point where their kids start to overtake them, sometimes physically, sometimes academically, sometimes just through chances we never had. And that’s exactly the point. Our job isn’t to stay ahead forever. It’s to open doors, offer a bit of support and help them go further than we ever managed. Though I’d happily take a couple more years before I have to actually pay up!
Do you want your children to follow in your footsteps, or find their own path?
Their own path, no question.
One of the best parts of being a parent is watching your kids slowly show you who they are. Isaac shares my thing for running and sport, which has given us some great times together. Bella and Emilia have their own interests and strengths, completely different, and I love that just as much.
I think one of the easiest traps for any parent is expecting your children to be a smaller version of you. They’re not projects to be finished. They’re their own people. The job isn’t to mould them into some pre-decided idea of success. It’s to help them work out what they care about and where they’re good. That takes patience and a bit of curiosity. More listening than directing, and being genuinely glad they’re different rather than trying to iron it out.
I’m far less bothered about whether they do the things I happen to enjoy, and far more interested in whether they find something that lights them up and gives them a sense of purpose.
If your children could remember one thing about you in 20 years, what would you want it to be?
That I was there. Not that I was successful or impressive. Just that I showed up, listened, made the time and believed in them.
When I look back on my own childhood, it’s almost never the big occasions that stick. It’s the ordinary stuff. Conversations, small traditions, time spent together. I suspect it’ll be the same for my three. I hope they remember the family adventures, the muddy trails and bike rides, the holidays, the evenings around the dinner table. Most of all I hope they remember feeling loved.
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