I Used To Defuse Bombs, Now Running Keeps Me Grounded | Heather Hartley

The Running Channel Podcast

The Running Channel

Sports, Health & Fitness, Running, Fitness

9.7 • 254 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Running Channel Meets is where we talk to real runners with incredible stories. Each episode we speak with people who inspire us to run, and give our guests an opportunity to tell their stories, often for the first time.

In this episode we chat with Heather Hartley, an Army veteran who served in the British Armed forces as a bomb disposal expert. After two decades of service, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, Heather faced the challenge of severe PTSD.

As a single parent navigating life after the military, she had a pivotal moment on Remembrance Day when she laced up an old pair of running shoes and went for her first run in years. Life started to kick in again. Today, Heather embraces a renewed sense of purpose through running, having completed both full and ultra-marathons, with many more challenges on the horizon.

Topics that we discuss in this episode:

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Military and bomb disposal experiences.

The Running Channel Meets was born from The Running Channel podcast. Hosted by Sarah Hartley (amateur runner) and Andy Baddeley (former pro runner) alongside Rick Kelsey (recovering runner), the TRC Podcast is friendly, jargon-free, and the perfect accompaniment to your runs.

For all enquiries contact [email protected] .

If you liked this, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And leave us a 5* review and rating, it really helps us get discovered.

We're on YouTube too, so check us out there: www.youtube.com/runningchannel .

Transcript

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0:00.0	After 20 years as a bomb disposal expert, including tours of Iraq and Afghanistan with the British Army, Heather Hartley struggled with PTSD.
0:14.2	One remembrance day at a low point, she found some old trainers and decided to go for a run.
0:19.3	That hour changed her life. That's our change to life.
0:21.0	This is TRC Meats.
0:26.7	So Heather, you didn't consider yourself a runner.
0:30.4	You had PTSD and then one day on Remembrance Sunday, you went out for a run, picked up some trainers and just went out the door. Can you
0:38.1	describe what did that moment feel like? I think it was kind of a do or die moment. The
0:46.1	Remembrance Day prior to that, I'd been sat in a hospital bed and not in a good place. And so coming up to that remembrance day,
0:56.9	I was like, I can't sit and go through that process again. So I need to do something different.
1:03.8	And like previously being in the army, I had run and hated it.
1:11.6	But I thought, well, it kind of gives you the discipline to keep up that fitness.
1:17.6	And so I'm just gonna grab my shoes, go for a run and see how it goes.
1:21.6	And how did that run feel when you were on it?
1:24.6	It was really mixed.
1:32.9	They had a, like, a poppy medal and a bugler,
1:35.2	and they, like, did the two-minute silence,
1:39.9	and I'd taken, like, one of the Remembrance Day crosses,
1:43.1	and I'd, like, written my friend's names on it and and did my own little tribute and it felt good to
1:47.6	run and not think about it and then the run stopped for the two-minute silence we did the two-minute
1:54.4	silence I like planted my cross near a tree and then carried on running again and it kind of gave me that freedom to
2:02.6	remember it but not too in depth like not let it overwhelm me and were you running with other people
2:10.4	at the time yeah i don't remember the other people but yeah they were they were there yeah And what did it do?
	...

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