Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

So, around 3 months ago I decided that I wanted to do something stupid to raise money for charity, specifically a charity that would help to support the mental health of our frontline workers when they need it most. 

I will be running 100 miles in 24 hours to raise money for the Our Blue Light charity. I will be completing this on 18th September 2021.

Anyone who knows me well enough will know I am not a runner nor am I built for running (which was confirmed by a physio recently 😅) but nevertheless I will be doing it. The longest I have run to date is 11.6 miles, so I've got quite a bit of training to do, I am currently in my second week. To put the distance into some sort of perspective, 100 miles = 1,353 football pitches or alternatively 100 miles = 2,366,682 toothpicks. So, a bloody long way.

The biggest drive and motivation behind this is due to a growing issue surrounding mental wellbeing in frontline workers and this issue is more important now than ever before.

My sister is a paramedic and I have seen how the stress and pressure of her job can effect her but yet she still turns up and makes a massive difference to people's lives day in day out when they need her the most. This is only one person, there are thousands more like her, putting themselves in harms way to ensure that we are not, and that we can all go home to our families at the end of the day.

In an online survey of over 1,600 staff and volunteers from police, fire, ambulance and search and rescue services also showed that over 9 in 10 (92 per cent) respondents had experienced stress, low mood and poor mental health at some point while working for the emergency services, while a staggering 62 per cent said they had experienced a mental health problem – such as depression, anxiety disorder, OCD, PTSD, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia – while working or volunteering in their current or previous Blue Light role.

Our frontline workers have given so much to us when we need them most, it would be amazing to be able to give something back in their time of need.