A Boss Who Motivates His Workers To Run

He was out of shape and couldn’t sleep. Running came to the rescue.

One could say the restaurant Becco in the Manhattan theater district is an establishment run by runners. That’s because of its owner, Joseph Bastianich. Three years ago he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and told he was overweight.

“I got scared by the fact that if I didn’t lose weight, I would have to sleep with a machine to help me breathe,” he recalls. “My doctor told me to start running a mile a day, so that’s what I did.”

One mile at a time, he began losing weight and eventually ran his first marathon, the ING New York City Marathon in 2008.

Members of his staff at Becco saw him physically change and then decided to take up marathoning themselves.

“After that first marathon, running spread virally among the Becco family,” he says. At this year’s ING New York City Marathon, six employees at Becco completed the ING New York City Marathon.

For More: New York Times