Since I lost someone very close to me to suicide in 2010, I haven't stopped in my quest to try and raise awareness of Mental Health. So why not start 2024 on the right foot (see what I did there?) and kick start it with a hardcore challenge?!

The event is my first (and probably only ever) Ultra Marathon Trail running race which will take place in Al Ula and is 50 km long with nearly 800 metres elevation. I think I am probably still trying to prove the surgeon wrong from 2005 (though he clearly did an amazing job!) when he told me that I would always walk with a limp and never be able to ski race again. I have 9 titanium pins and a titanium plate in my left leg, which is half the length of my shin, but I have decided that I shouldn't let it stop me.

For those who suffer from Mental Illness, their pain is far greater from what they are dealing with internally than I ever will on a slow jog across the desert. BUT I want to speak out to those people and help them to know that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel; a finish line to mark the end of a period of suffering.

And finally for those who don't suffer from a Mental Illness but feel like they want to know more to help their own Mental Fitness or to help others better theirs, if I can have the courage to run a distance that will make me walk down stairs backwards for a week, then they can have the courage to really look into it their Mental Fitness. Everybody has mental health, though we don't think of it, discuss it or try to improve it in the same way we do our Physical Health. Let's make a change and keep this conversation going! Please donate and most importantly share this far and wide!

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