Icon Group’s Stuart Giles knows how to run a company and a marathon

The co-founder of a billion dollar Queensland company ran 80kms a week, without music, to train for his remarkable bucket list achievement.

Five years ago, Stuart Giles made a vow to his middle-aged self but it didn’t involve piercing his ear or getting a shiny red sports car.

Giles’ promise to himself was to run all of the world’s great marathons – New York, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, and Tokyo – by his 50th birthday.

In March, the co-founder of the Brisbane-based health groups Icon and Epic Pharmacy crossed the finish line in Tokyo to achieve his mission six months before his half century rolls around in September. It’s been a decade of blood sweat and tears for Giles, who joins a relatively small band of athletes who have run all six major marathons.

His journey to a large extent mirrored the ups and downs of the now billion-dollar business he founded with wife Cathie Reid more than a decade ago.

Giles says he has always liked to run and in his youth had a semi-professional career with Great Preston Cricket Club in the UK as a batsman and bowler.

A skydive with friends in 2009 to celebrate his 40th birthday set him on his marathon odyssey.

“We went out and did this parachute jump at Redcliffe and got around to talking about what we would do for our 50th,” he says. “We said we couldn’t jump out an aeroplane again so that got me thinking.”

Giles’ first marathon was New York in November 2009, a couple of months later.

“This was on my bucket list, but I didn’t have any great plans to do any more at the time,” he says.

Icon Group co-founder Stuart Giles hitting the pavement. Picture: Adam Head

Finally on his 45th birthday he bit the bullet and decided to do all six great marathons, a feat that would eventually entitle him to the coveted six-star marathon medal.

He completed the Berlin marathon in 2014, Chicago in 2016, London in 2017, Boston in 2018 and finally Tokyo this year.

“I am a believer in doing what you say,” says Giles. “I also like the idea of having a goal and sticking to it.”

But reaching that goal – which fewer than 5000 people around the world have obtained – did not come easy for Giles who had a young family and a complex business to run. Training for each marathon starts more than three months before each event, involving a strict diet and running regimen.

“Cathie and the kids have been very understanding,” Giles says. “When I first started, I would have to race back from training to help Cathie with the kids as they were still small. Now my daughter has her own driver’s licence and can pick me up after training.”

Giles and Reid founded Icon Group and Epic Pharmacy after meeting at Monash University while both were studying pharmacy. Epic Pharmacy now runs a network of hospital-based pharmacies, while Icon is Australia’s largest private day oncology provider.

A consortium, including QIC and Goldman Sachs, purchased a majority stake in Icon for more than $1 billion in 2017. Giles spent much of last year based in Singapore as Icon expanded into Asia. A prolific traveller, Giles says part of the attraction of marathon running is learning about the different culture of each city he competes in.

Icon Group co-founder Stuart Giles pictured in Brisbane. Picture: Adam Head

“The city and culture is usually reflected in each marathon,” he says. “In New York, it is very ‘rah rah’ with a band on every street corner,” he says. “In London, it is zany and I remember being passed at one point by someone dressed as a 7ft-high beer bottle. In Tokyo, running is huge and 1.6 million people came out to watch the marathon but they were very polite.”

Getting to compete at each marathon is not a matter of just turning up with your joggers – you either have to be invited or get selected through a ballot. “Of the 40,000 to 50,000 runners in each event, there are usually 250,000 applicants,” he says.

Running marathons also involves planning, including taking into account the weather. “In London, I thought it was going to be cold but it ended up being around 23 degrees and I wore too many clothes.”

The toughest conditions he’s faced were at the Boston Marathon last year. “The first part of the race was just snow and black ice,” he recalls. “About 15 per cent of runners had to pull out because of injury or hypothermia. I later realised the sleet had blown out the glass of my running googles.”

Giles says running has allowed him to get away from the boardroom and into a space where he can think more clearly. “For me it’s been about the enjoyment of the physical activity,” says Giles, who runs up to 80 kilometres a week. “I don’t run with music and it is my thinking time. Cathie and I are great believers that no one came up with a great idea sitting at a desk.”

He says his marathons have largely tracked the success of Icon. “When I look at where the business was back in 2009, it was an incredibly challenging period,” he says.

“We were in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis and we were struggling to meet interest payments and keep the doors open. Running for me at the time was a sanity break.”

Cathie Reid says her husband’s marathon running has been a constant in the family’s lives for so long it has become part of their “version of normal”.

“It’s also helped that Stuart likes to run early in the morning, so particularly for his long runs he’s often back not long after the kids have woken up, so a lot of the time they don’t even realise he’s gone,” she says.

Icon Group co-founder Cathie Reid. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

“As they’ve got older and more independent it’s definitely got easier. I remember his first marathon back in 2009, when the kids were only eight and five, being much more challenging as I had to sacrifice my own exercise time to accommodate his training schedule. Ten years on, there’s clearly a lot more flexibility.” She adds the children are “incredibly proud of him and the dedication and discipline he’s displayed to achieve his goal”.

Giles says his days of running major marathons are over and he’s not quite sure what his next major physical challenge will be.

He says his attention is now focused on Reid’s plan to become one of the world’s first space tourists. A few years ago, a Virgin Galactic ticket, costing an estimated quarter of a million dollars, arrived under the Christmas tree as a gift from Giles. She has already completed zero gravity and G-Force training in the US. “It will be all about supporting Cathie now as she prepares for the flight,” he says.