ONLY HALF TRUE
From three kilometers to ten Ironmans — and learning to choose what comes next.
Get the e-bookWhat happens when an overweight guy decides he wants to lose weight?
Nothing unusual. It has happened thousands of times before.
What came next is less common. That guy was me, and I eventually became a ten-time Ironman finisher.
But this book is not really about that.
It's about the friends who stand beside you even when they could be doing a million better things. About team races where nobody watches the clock, only whether everyone makes it together. About tears and laughter, struggle and letting go.
This is not a collection of race reports, although there are races in it. Of course there are. They shaped fifteen years of my life. But even then, what matters most is not the course or the result. It's what I felt at the start, what kept me moving, and what happened inside me when I crossed the finish line exhausted.
It's also about the forces behind achievement. And what happens when those achievements begin to lock you inside an invisible prison.
When you want to play tennis with your daughter, but the training session is already waiting in the calendar. When your friends invite you out for a beer, but you have a long run the next morning. Sound familiar?
Only Half True is not a book about how to conquer yourself. It's about learning to recognize when you have enough — without losing the part of yourself that made you begin in the first place.
"Starting Monday. After the holidays. When work eases off. When the weather gets better. Later is a wonderful word. Possibly the most reliable friend we have — one who never holds you accountable, just waits patiently in the corner, always willing to take on tomorrow's responsibility."
"Doing something stupid diligently doesn't make it any less stupid. I read it again. That hit home. Diligence was not my weak point. If I decided on something, I did it. The only thing nobody had asked was whether what I was carrying out so conscientiously actually made sense."
"In the finish photo you can see that I'm smiling. What you can't reliably read off it is whether that's because I've just fulfilled one of the great dreams of my life, or because I finally don't have to keep running. From the outside, two finishes can look exactly alike. Inside, there can be ten years between them."
"I ran whatever fell to me. More, if it was needed. The point was that the team got around. With me, it always did. Written down, that sentence looks a bit like a weak advertising slogan: János Józsa Team Rescue Service. Available weekends in case of runner shortage."
Who wrote this book?
I’m János Józsa: an amateur athlete, blogger, father, lifelong goal-chaser and, from time to time, the most enthusiastic victim of my own ideas.
I don’t consider myself particularly gifted at anything. But when something genuinely interests me, I can immerse myself in it completely and keep at it until I find out just how far I can go. What I lack in natural talent, I generally try to make up for through hard work and perseverance. As an Aries, I’m also prone to charging headfirst into walls—preferably several times, just to make absolutely sure they really are walls.
Running entered my life relatively late, and at first it certainly didn’t look as though it would ever develop into a serious relationship. Since then, I’ve run marathons, completed Spartan Races, run around Lake Balaton as part of a relay team several times, had my first taste of HYROX, and completed the Ironman distance ten times.
I’m not a professional athlete. I did all of this alongside work, family and everyday life. Perhaps that is precisely why I have always been more interested in the human stories behind the results than in the numbers themselves.
For years, I have been writing on gyozdlemagad.hu about my experiences in sport: the training, the successes, the mistakes, and those situations that seem much funnier in hindsight than they do when you are right in the middle of them.
I believe in consistent effort, in curiosity, and in occasionally finding out what we are capable of—without forgetting to live along the way.
If you've made it this far, you're probably ready.
Get the e-book
Saját határait feszegeti a hétszeres vasemberré vált szolnoki triatlonos, akit életmódváltása egészen az élsportig repített. Azt vallja: sosem késő elkezdeni!
Józsa János korábban nem sportolt rendszeresen, a jó ételeket is szerette, így apránként felcsúsztak rá a pluszkilók. Negyvenéves kora után azonban úgy döntött, életmódot vált, mert kezdte magát rosszul érezni kilencvenhat kilósan. 
Az a megtiszteltetés ért, hogy az Ensport tavaly évvégén készült kiadványába (Pulzus Sportmagazin Triatlonistáknak), bekerüt egy velem készült interjú, amit megosztanék veletek itt a blogon is.