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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