In 2013, Will suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage and was told by doctors that he would never be able to move the left-hand side of body again. Here he is in 2022 training to complete the Leicester Half Marathon!
“I have always been interested in exercising, especially running. I ran the 2013 Gloucester 10k just a month before suffering my bleed. After running the 2018 London Marathon, I wanted to do more and more running events to try and inspire people, so set about researching what I could do locally.
This year I will be running for the fantastic national brain injury charity- Headway. Headway have helped my family and I so much with rebuilding myself and helping me to find my place in the world again. In 2014, a representative from Headway Gloucestershire came to my hospital ward to introduce themselves and the work they do. Like a lot of people, unfortunately, I had never heard of them.
When you are a brain injury survivor, you feel like you have no place in the world anymore and really don’t know where you belong. When I used to attend Headway Gloucestershire, I could sit in a room full of people like myself who knew exactly what I was feeling because they were going through it all too. That felt so inspiring and hopeful.
Running Leicester will mean so much to me. Brain injuries don’t just affect one person, and with many of my family not able to attend when I finished the London Marathon in 2018, this will give a lot of my friends and family the chance to see me do it. I’m really looking forward to it. One of mine and my brother’s favourite pubs growing up is towards the end of the route, we have joked about celebrating with a well-deserved pint together!”
If you’d like to join Will in the Run Leicester Half Marathon this year you can sign up here: resultsbase.net/cpgcrj8.
