Hello all!

Starting on Wednesday 6th May I am going to be running a marathon or 2, or 3, or 4, or 5 (lol). Recently I read 2 articles that hit me quite hard. The first was detailing the suicide of a leading emergency doctor in New York, who took her own life aged 49 after leading the frontline fight against the coronavirus just became too much. The second, was just yesterday, where I read that a 22 year old lad studying at Loughborough had also taken his own life. 2 people, separated by over 3000 miles, living 2 very different lives, unfortunately ending in the same way.

This led me to find out that 80% of young people who have had previous mental health issues are experiencing that their conditions have worsened during the lockdown and in a recent survey conducted by MIND 1/3 British adults described their mental health as poor or very poor. In the 2008 recession over 10,000 people are believed to have taken their life because of the resulting circumstances.

I suppose what this highlighted to me is that no one is immune to the pressures that are cracking off around us. Whether you are a nurse, a student, a business owner, a supermarket worker, a politician, white, black, blue, Male, Female or all of the above. The bottom line is that we’re people and sometimes we struggle with life’s pressures.

Over the past year MIND have directly worked with 40,000 people struggling with their mental health, they answered over 118,000 calls from people in need, their mental health information was accessed more than 16 million times, whilst leading a completely new mental health scheme in schools.

The idea of this is that everyone is running their own marathons at the moment, but the important thing to know is that no matter how long your marathon may seem, you’re not running it alone.

So to have a bit of fun with it I’ve decided to do this dependent on how much I raise, if I raise:

£100 - by the end of day 1 I will run a second marathon the next day.

£200 - by the end of day 2 I will run a third marathon the next day.

£400 - by the end of day 3 I will run a fourth marathon the next day.

£600 - by the end of day 4 I will try and run a fifth marathon.

My aim is to try and raise awareness for mental health in this period and if I can raise a bit of money and make a few people have a laugh along the way I will be exceptionally proud. The boys have always told me that I have the physique of a vanilla Mo Farah so I’ll be alright I’m sure...

Whether it is 5p, 50p or £5 it really does mean an awful lot. Having seen the devastating of affects of mental health watching friends and family struggle first hand this means a huge amount to me. With people’s mental health being threatened now more than ever, I am determined to try and make a small difference and hopefully provide some entertainment along the way. 

Thank you again and much love always,

Joey x