{"id":210404,"date":"2025-10-13T18:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T18:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/210404\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T18:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T18:07:09","slug":"man-undertakes-2000-mile-quest-to-boost-mental-health-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/210404\/","title":{"rendered":"Man undertakes 2,000-mile quest to boost mental health awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760360710_614_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hagXkB hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/74e30420-a820-11f0-85ef-e382bd92d5ce.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Drew Jonksman Drew Jonkmans is pictured dressed in a white T-shirt. He is a young man with short blonde hair and he is smiling. He is standing in front of a signpost marked John O' Groats. The sign has fingers pointing to Edinburgh, Land's End, New York, Orkney and Shetland. The sea can be seen in the background.&#10;\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 bGQwLJ\"\/>Drew Jonksman<\/p>\n<p>Drew Jonkmans described the challenge as &#8220;brutal&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">An intrepid islander has endured injury and storms to reach the halfway mark on a 2,000-mile running and cycling challenge from Lands End to John O&#8217; Groats &#8211; and back &#8211; to boost mental health awareness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Drew Jonkmans&#8217; challenge began as a bet dreamed up in a pub and he is making a film to show that &#8220;strength can come from deep places of struggle and that there is always hope&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The 26-year-old is raising funds for free mental health counselling for islanders through the bigmoose charity and he is also helping the Becoming X Foundation for disadvantaged young people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">He began to run to help his mental health, taking on the Guernsey ultramarathon and the Marathon Des Sables across the Sahara.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Lowest point&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Mr Jonkmans said obstacles, including a tendon injury and Storm Amy in Scotland, had forced him to &#8220;roll with the punches&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">He aimed to run 50 miles a day to John O&#8217;Groats and cycle 100 miles a day back but his injury forced him to adapt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Mr Jonkmans said running had helped him with his own mental health challenges in the past four years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;I was in the lowest point of my life [four years ago],&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;I had no hope for my future and I wasn&#8217;t proud of who I was.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;Through support, finding a love for ultra running and realising that our limits are set by nothing and nobody but ourselves I managed to turn things around.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Really inspire&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">His 30-day mission includes a side trip to Cardiff to visit bigmoose which provides mental health support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;It&#8217;s Guernsey&#8217;s chance to tap into a national mental health charity,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;We can bring immediate, free and very high-quality therapy to the island.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">He said there were &#8220;limited resources&#8221; for mental health support on Guernsey and islanders often faced long waits or paying for support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">He is working with film-maker Ewan Champion-Smith to &#8220;really inspire people and create some really positive change within the island and further beyond&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drew Jonksman Drew Jonkmans described the challenge as &#8220;brutal&#8221; An intrepid islander has endured injury and storms to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-210404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}