I recently lost a very good friend of mine who had suffered with mental illnesses for a long while before taking his own life. 

I first met Olly in the first week of university, and lived with him for all 3 years of my studies. I was close to Olly through all of our highs and unfortunately through some lows. This being said, I could never have imagined that this bright, excitable, charming boy could ever suffer so much as to find his own way out.

This is still a fact that I am struggling to understand and I feel that this has highlighted a huge problem amongst our generation. After talking to all of Olly's loved ones it seems that not one person could have predicted this sudden loss of life. To all of us Olly was a larger than life character, never too shy to say exactly what was on his mind and to fill any room with conversation and laughter. He had so many people around him who's lives were made more positive by his company, yet underneath all of that there were some demons that would not leave him alone. 

I know Olly's story is not unique to him, and to me this is extremely worrying. I have decided to run this 10k to help raise awareness for the illness and to generate funding for CALM, who I believe are setting things in motion for positive change regarding this issue. 

CALM, the campaign against living miserably, exists to prevent suicide - the biggest killer of men aged between 20 and 49. With medical intervention, it's thought that most, if not all cases of mental illness are curable or at the least manageable. The shocking fact is that despite mental health issues contributing to a quarter of health problems in the UK it only receives 13% of the NHS budget.

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