About

A bit of background before the nitty-gritty: I'm Theo, I'm 17 and in a couple of months (August) I shall be running my first ever marathon: the Guernsey Waterfront Marathon in, um, Guernsey. It's quite a daunting task - I'm certainly not a particularly sporty type, and no Mo Farah when it comes to running - and I am doing so in aid of a charity called the Campaign Against Living Miserably, or CALM for short. CALM is a non-profit organisation, dedicated to raising awareness on the causes of and how to prevent male suicide. Suicide is the biggest killer of fellas under 50 in the UK, and they can be tricky to deal with if you are affected by one. The wonderful people at CALM, then, have an entire website with advice on how to deal with issues such as depression, mental health and alcoholism, as well as a magazine that features articles written by and about people and their experiences with suicide. Perhaps their crowning glory, though, is the CALM helpline. This free-of-charge helpline is open every day, every week from 5PM to midnight for anonymous chats to friendly, supportive volunteers. As you'd imagine, running this is not cheap, and CALM need all the help they can get. Having directed a few friends to CALM when they were in a pickle (and having been there myself a couple of times), this physical challenge is my way of saying thank you to these guys. I want to raise as much as possible, so donations of any size are welcomed! UPDATE!!! (04/08/2014) So there are three weeks before the big day. In the time between posting the above and writing this, a friend of mine has been affected by the suicide of an acquaintance of hers; seeing the effect these things have on people has reminded me just how important organisations such as CALM are. My training has also been hampered recently by a foot injury I sustained in Ireland, but I am now back running and should be fit for the marathon. For those that are interested, estimated time should be between four and a half and five hours - the more you donate, the faster I'll run! Set me a target! Finally I'd like to thank anyone that has donated to this cause - it's all thanks to your generosity alone that I have nearly reached the halfway point. But there is still a way to go! Share this as much as possible, donate all you want (every little helps remember)! From now on any donations will get a personal video message from yours truly, and for any donation above 10 I will deliver that message doing whatever you request - be it standing on my head, in the form of a song, from underwater - anything! (Within reason, of course.) Thanks again for taking the time to read this, and happy donating!