To celebrate my 25th birthday I'm running the Polar Circle marathon, in Greenland, on the 26th October this year.

I'm running in memory of Archie Brocklebank. Archie was incredibly kind, charismatic and talented. I'm honoured to have been able to call him a close friend and boat partner for the 2016 Devizes to Westminster 125 mile Canoe Marathon. The tough training for that race, with many long hard hours on the water, changed my life: it set me up for an army career and was the start of competing in endurance events. I'm convinced without that DW and the time spent paddling with Archie my life would look very different today. Now, whenever things get tough whilst training or racing, I think of Archie. I can feel his endless encouragement and hear him saying "you may as well enjoy the current levels of pain as it's only going to get worse".

Sadly Archie took his own life in April 2019. I deployed to Canada 24 hours later in a mix of shock and genuine disbelief.

Unfortunately Archie isn't my only close friend or colleague to have taken their own life. Those working in agriculture experience double the suicide rate of the general population, where as it is up to 4x for those serving in the Army or in the Veterinary profession. For a while I accepted it was inevitable that the list of good people we had lost that way would keep growing, and sat through 100s of suicide prevention presentations without thinking or feeling much at all.

That changed with the Canmore trust: they managed to reach through, and get me to start talking. But most importantly, through their work I saw a way that actually might prevent loosing more people that I care about to suicide. It's not inevitable.

The Polar Circle Marathon is a classic 26.2 mile marathon held within in the Artic Circle in Northern Greenland. The race is over ice sheets and on snow covered gravel tracks, past glaciers and through the artic tundra. Temperatures are expected to be between -15*C and -5*C with significant wind chill, leading to frost bite being a significant concern. Just a wee step up from a park run...

Therefore please donate what you can - it might just save a life.

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