CAPACITY FOR RESILIENCE TOUR

In 2017 I exposed my secret 20 year battle with poor mental health living with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, including suicide ideation.

As a serving 25 year Firefighter, my story was circulated widely and had clearly resonated with many others who were also suffering in some way.

A documentary film by Hide & Seek Media followed me for over 3 years at home and work with a focus on the mental health crisis in the emergency services. They accompanied me on a number of my endurance challenges across the globe capturing the inner turmoil and suffering, but also documenting how I built a robust mindset through resilience from adversity.

My endurance challenges provided the foundation from where my therapy and medication was built upon. Suffering and solitude and time away from the white noise was enabling my mind to become as strong as my body, and allowing me to become grateful for the things in my life that really mattered.

Increasing sponsorship and media attention over my story led me to becoming a lived experience public and motivational speaker. Now represented by agencies I was able to reach those who needed to hear some inspiration that might lead them to seek help and support. I had been there, was still there, but a work in progress.

In 2021 I attended an incident through work that involved the death of my mother which set me back in my recovery. I continue to negotiate with the grief but this event provided another reason to vent pain and suffering through my endurance challenges all over the world.

I have now completed hundreds of marathons and ultra-marathons, run across archipelago’s and islands, entire national coastlines and the world’s largest desert.

Due to the volume of my events, I rarely raise money because people get fundraising fatigue with so many good people trying to raise money for good causes. The last time I asked for donations was in 2022 when I ran my second Marathon Des Sables, the toughest footrace on the planet across the Sahara Desert just 3 months after I lost my beautiful Mum. I saw her in the sun above the desert and her memory got me through.

This year I have decided to take on a series of events in an effort to raise some much needed funds and awareness for a few amazing charities that I am involved with. I realise that a single marathon isn’t likely to impress or encourage people to donate a few £€$ when I have done so many before, so my feats these days need to be unique.

First up on March 16th I am taking on the Rome Marathon. Then on April 26th I am taking on the Flawed Hero Marathon in the UK. May 11th I have the Geneva Marathon and June 14-15th I will be running an Ultra-Marathon across 2 days in Slovenia. Next up on July 12th I have a hybrid fitness race in Edinburgh. No doubt I will sign up to more in the months following!

For my endeavours in the Sahara, I was able to raise around £7.5k for the mental health recovery programmes run by the Firefighters Charity. This was thanks to the amazing generosity of friends, family and colleagues. I spent a week at the Firefighters Charity venue at Harcombe House in Devon and saw first-hand how the funds raised can be life-saving.

For my events in 2025 I am hoping to raise a respectable sum for a few charities which will be split equally between them thanks to the Give Wheel platform.

These include PTSD999 whom I proudly represent as an Ambassador, and they work tirelessly to get support for those in the emergency services suffering with their mental health. The founders spend countless hours of their own time to the cause due to their own lived experience.

Stand-by-Me is another wonderful charity I work with as a volunteer advisor and they provide bereavement support to children. This work has enabled me personally to talk about the loss of my dear Mum and my grief which has been extremely cathartic. The young persons they help are truly inspiring and brave individuals that never cease to amaze me.

Pancreatic Cancer UK is the chosen charity of the Flawed Hero Marathon due to the cruel disease the founder lost his father too. My own father also has Cancer so this resonates hugely with me, and I am immensely proud to be a part of the Flawed Hero Movement which is a unique collective of inspiring individuals running a marathon through the night in Letchworth Garden City, not all necessarily runners, but each with their own unique motivation and story.

“Suffering leads to endurance; endurance develops a tested character; and a character that has been tested gives rise to hope”.