Wesley Reilly is almost half way through a mammoth task in a bid to raise mental health awareness following the passing of his friend through suicide.
The Portarlington man, who is originally from Carlow but has lived here for twenty years, is currently trying to run 450kms throughout the month of August.
Wesley is running in aid of Jigsaw – a mental health group that have a base in Tullamore and serve the people in Laois.
Their mission is to create a society that values and supports young people’s mental health.
They do this by delivering free confidential one-to-one support services, by helping communities be more supportive to young people and by influencing change in how society responds to young people.
Wesley has made a great start too – wracking up 210kms in the first 11 days of the month and he in confident of reaching his goal.
A keen runner, Wesley is a member of Triolgy Traithlon club in Portlaoise and has almost competed for St Michael’s of Portarlington in the past.
Speaking to LaoisToday, Wesley explained why he decided to take on this challenge in aid of Jigsaw.
He said: “A friend of my passed away through suicide last December and I found it very hard to shake.
“This was a lad that I worked with and I would’ve seen him most days.
“In March, I was isolating at home due to Covid and while I was still working and interacting with people virtually, it was a lonely enough time.
“I got thinking about suicides and how lonely people must be at times during Covid – especially young people who are stuck out in rural areas and mightn’t have great contact.
“I had done the 160km for the month of March for Pieta House so I thought I want to try do something to help promote mental health awareness so this is where the idea came from.”
Wesley also explained how he decided to try to run 450kms in the month of August.
He said: “I wanted to run one kilometre for every life lost to suicide in 2020.
“This was personal to me because I had lost someone this way in 2020.
“I found out that 421 people sadly died by suicide in 2019 and while the figures are not available yet for 2020, it is estimated that the figure will tragically increase so that is why I set myself the goal of 450km.
“I used to do a lot of charity stuff years ago. In 2013, myself and two others did a 900km triathlon styled event for charity.
“This comprised of a 7.6km swim, 650km Mizen to Malin Head cycle and run from Galway to Dublin over over 11 days.
“So knowing I had done this in the past was a good foundation to believe I could do something big again.”
Wesley began training then and launched an Instagram page in May to let people know what he was doing.
He then set up a fundraising page after he had decided he was going to donate whatever money he raised to Jigsaw.
He said: “I wanted to go for something that wasn’t as main stream as Pieta House and I know that Jigsaw do brilliant work.
“While I am doing this to raise money for them, it is as important for me to be able to raise awareness about the charity so that people know about them.
“They are an early intervention group and they are growing all the time.”
Wesley ran 305kms in June – running an average of 10km per day – so he knew he needed to up it to 15km per day.
He did that in July but he found that extremely difficult to do every single day.
Wesley said: “So I came up with the theory that at the weekends, I would double or triple my runs and then pull back during the week when I was working.
“That has worked far better. I ran 50km the August Bank Holiday weekend and I did 61km last weekend so it has been highly successful.
“I am doing a lot in Portarlington but I have also ran in Portlaoise, Newbridge, Carlow and east Clare. I’m on holidays shortly and hope to run down in Waterford too.”
Wesley has already raised more than €1,000 and he is hoping that this continues to build as the month progresses.
Anyone who wishes to donate can do so by clicking here while you can also follow Wesley’s journey on his Instagram page.
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