{"id":6238,"date":"2021-06-03T10:41:53","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T10:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/?p=6238"},"modified":"2021-06-03T10:41:53","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T10:41:53","slug":"runner-feature-david-halsey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/runner-feature-david-halsey\/","title":{"rendered":"Runner Feature – David Halsey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a young man suffering with mental health, just before university I tried to take my own life three times. The last time I was hospitalised for just under a week.<\/p>\n

I suffered with self harm and low mood for several years during this time. I tried to join the British Army twice and was unable too due to my medical history. Some years later after I graduated, I applied for the Royal Marines and was unsuccessful at my written exams and was told that I would not be a marine.<\/p>\n

This was the end of my dream. I struggled to know what I wanted to do with my life for some years after. With a burning fire inside to be physical and use my youth before it was gone! I eventually applied for the SAS: Who Dares Wins<\/strong> documentary series on channel 4 just before we went into lockdown.<\/p>\n

I passed through the first faze of the the interview process and was asked to complete a recorded 1.5 mile run in under 9min30s. Tried as I might as someone who has never ran, with 2 months training, I could only achieve 9min52s.<\/p>\n

Another failure and a pandemic, my mental health and self harm escalated quickly and in the summer of 2020 I was official diagnosed with:<\/p>\n

Depression<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anxiety<\/strong><\/p>\n

OCD<\/strong><\/p>\n

PTSD<\/strong><\/p>\n

Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder<\/strong><\/p>\n

Panic Disorder<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the two months training for the documentary I had an epiphany. I never new it before but I actually enjoyed running and it filled that gap of wanting to join the Army or Navy.  How could I not have seen this before?… and the rest is history.<\/p>\n

Since the summer of 2020 I worked hard to get faster almost everyday for 6 months and just before the year ended I had finally achieved a sub 20m 5k.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the year in January I found a coach (joey stocks) and committed to a 6 a day week, training plan. No compromise, no excuses and no quitting. I had found my purpose and started my journey to complete my first marathon.<\/p>\n

Keeping in mind my first run was 1.5mile in 16mins. I had come on leaps and bounds as my training got stronger within less than a year I had jumped from (23min 5k > 17m46s) (52min 10k > 38m) and my HM was 1:45 > 1:26. I felt great for the first time in years and as a complete surprise, finding out the night before my coach had given me his number for the race the next day!<\/p>\n

Typically my first race I was nervous and attended the event alone and had forgotten my chip :(. The staff was so warm and welcoming and a very polite lady changed my number 33 for 5832 🙂<\/p>\n

Running under my coaches name and under my exchanged number. I focused and gave a good push during the race. With a chip time of 1:22’50 and 35th place finish! I was ecstatic to say the least.<\/p>\n

Running has helped my mental health more than I can explain and I currently sit in the happiest place of my life in over a decade. With running I have finally found my home!!<\/p>\n

\"Runner<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a young man suffering with mental health, just before university I tried to take my own life three times. The last time I was hospitalised for just under a week. I suffered with self harm and low mood for several years during this time. I tried to join the British Army twice and was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2955,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2955"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6238"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6246,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6238\/revisions\/6246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/club.runthrough.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}