Recovery Runners Leeds Update: Reconvening with Dean Smith and Jamie Heselden

Local TV

We reconvene with Dean Smith and Jamie Heselden to discover how their Recovery Runners Community continues to help Leeds locals with their recovery journeys.

Transcript

00:00I'm Dean Smith, I'm one of the co-founders of Recovery Runners along with my good friend Jamie

00:08Heseldon. We started Recovery Runners in 2021, right middle of Covid. We were already doing

00:17couch 5Ks with local detoxes and rehabs and we decided in January to form it up and call it

00:24Recovery Runners. We've moved properly now, we've come to a good friend of mine, Danny Reynolds,

00:28who we used to go to school with and when I come into my recovery, started coming down here on the

00:35morning and you know boxing with him, training me on the morning because I used to do it as a kid.

00:40So I spoke to Danny and I said, are we all right to run front club mate? And he just said, of course

00:44you are, it's your gym as well Jamie. We've got all local community, I grew up there in that street

00:49behind you, I was born on this estate, you know what I mean, I've got a lot of respect for the people

00:53down here, you know, so these all come out and they have a room with us, a lot of them and kids

00:57from boxing club dudes, you know. Coming into recovery, for years and years I took, took, took,

01:04took, take, take, take, always with an agenda, always wanting something out of it, whereas when

01:09you get into recovery you want to give back because you're released from surviving, you're released from

01:16the monotony and the grind and the pain of every day, not wanting a beer, you know, and it's about

01:22giving back and I think with the 12 step stuff that I do, that's a giving back, this is a different

01:27form of it because it started off with people in recovery from drugs and alcohol and it quickly

01:32went into people with food, food addiction, gambling addiction, PTSD, anxiety and before long

01:41it went from drugs and alcohol to whatever you're suffering from, whatever you're recovering from,

01:46we always say if you're recovering from an ingrowing toenail you're welcome. Running saved my life,

01:51it really has, you know, we didn't plan out for any of this, you know, we just planned out to help that

01:56one person who were having a bit of a bad day like when we used to have bad days in recovery, you know,

02:02give that little bit back for that person if they want to come down to like have a pot of tea,

02:06like I said before, we're not doctors, we're not counsellors, but we're good listeners and we've

02:12had some great results out of this club, they've come down, they've started a couch to 5k,

02:16these people, three women, have gone on to do marathons from doing a couch to 5k,

02:21Manchester Marathon, you know. It's not just seeing people come and get fitter and physically get

02:28better and be able to reach goals that they thought they never could, but it's the community that's

02:33building up around it. I mean the running community in Leeds is massive, you know, I know a lot of

02:38people from different clubs, but here when people come here, they'll come here for the first time

02:42and it's like there's that nervousness and not wanting to talk to anybody and they'll stand in

02:46a corner and then by the time you're running back, they're budded up with somebody and they're talking

02:50to somebody and they're exchanging phone numbers and they're meeting up for a week for a run and

02:54stuff like that, you know what I mean? So to see a community grow amongst all these people is fantastic.

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