Running With Pride
How Dudley Garner came back from physical and mental trauma
IN MARCH 2009, DUDLEY GARNER
walked out of a bar in his hometown of Norwich just as a 17-year-old driver lost control of his car and mounted the kerb. Two days later, Dudley woke up in a hospital bed, his life changed forever.
Before the incident, Dudley, who was 27 at the time, worked as a financial adviser. Alongside this, he ran his own record label and played football three times a week.
Following the accident, in which Dudley suffered a fractured skull and a broken eye socket, it seemed his sporting days were over. ‘My coordination was shot to bits, so any kind of ball sports – football, tennis, golf – were impossible.’
However, the physical injuries were only part of the problem. Unbeknown to Dudley, he had suffered a brain injury when he was struck by the car, and this led to depression and anxiety.
‘My mood went downhill rapidly,’ he says. ‘At the time, I didn’t really understand that I had mental health issues; I just thought that I had every right to be angry and that my behaviour was justified. I started drinking a lot more, trying to cope. I even had a couple of goes at trying to end it all. Luckily, I was pretty rubbish at that, so here I am.’
When Dudley’s brain injury was properly diagnosed, he began to understand why he’d been feeling the way he had. But accepting he had mental health issues remained a challenge. ‘I’d been prescribed all these antidepressants, which I’d been chucking down the toilet,’ he says. ‘I told myself I was a man and didn’t need things like that. I thought mental health was very taboo, and it wasn’t until I’d basically destroyed a Christmas by being very unpleasant that I accepted I had a problem.’
Shortly after that, in 2013, Dudley started running. His wife signed him up for the Edinburgh 10K and encouraged him to raise money for Headway, a brain-injury charity. ‘She knew that if I raised money for Headway, then I’d end up learning more about head injuries and begin to understand myself a bit better.’
Dudley’s training for the event was somewhat unorthodox. ‘During my first parkrun, I think I threw up three times and stopped for a fag twice,’ he says. ‘I had a tin of beer waiting for me at the finish. That was my recovery drink: a tin of Foster’s.
I was a horrendous excuse for a human being at that time.’
Despite this, he finished the Edinburgh 10K. ‘I hated it. I remember wanting to get to the finish so I could buy a bottle of vodka and a packet of fags, and then burn my trainers.’
Dudley did indeed buy the booze and cigarettes – but then something unexpected happened. His phone began to ping with messages of congratulations. ‘That was my first runner’s buzz,’ he says. ‘I remember getting this tingling feeling in my spine and realising something had changed. I bought myself a proper pair of trainers that afternoon and signed up for the Great North Run, which I completed four months later.’
Since then, Dudley has run dozens of races and got his marathon time down to 3:39. But it’s his work in the community that’s most impressive.
He took up coaching in 2014 and has gone on to set up a running-forwellbeing group, Up The Tempo, and, in 2017, he won the England Athletics Run Together Run Leader of the Year award. He also won a community award with Norwich City FC, and is now working with them on a running project called Run For Me.
‘I don’t think I would have stuck with running if I hadn’t been able to give something back,’ he says. ‘Because of my head injury, I felt quite worthless. But if I was able to do something that made other people’s lives better, then I felt like there was a reason why I’d survived.’
Recently, when applying for funding, Dudley needed a few quotes from members of his running group. So he sent out a request on social media, asking people to tell him why they run. ‘Some of the responses were incredible,’ he says. ‘I’ve got them printed out by my bedside. If I wake up in the morning and feel crap, I look at their words and see I’ve got a purpose. I’m hugely proud of that.’
‘I DON’T THINK I WOULD HAVE STUCK WITH RUNNING IF I HADN’T BEEN ABLE TO GIVE SOMETHING BACK’