BELHAVENI Hill School welcomed the adventurer and former pupil Jamie Ramsay back to his old school to lead a school run and share tales from his 17,000km expedition.
Ramsay talked to an audience of over 160 pupils and parents about his experience in ‘Running the Americas’ and his belief in the power of physical challenge as an antidote to mental ill health.
He opened the school’s inaugural Wellbeing Weekend during his visit, and led a Belhaven run with over 100 pupils before joining them for tea.
Ramsay explained how he decided he had had enough of working in finance in 2013, having followed his peers, rather than his dreams, into the City.
His passion for running gave him the confidence to plan an audacious adventure – an unsupported run from Vancouver to Buenos Aires, a journey of 17,000km designed to finish on New Year’s Eve 2014.
Ramsay now runs his own enterprise, called ‘Ramsay Adventure’, and has now completed 54,000km under his own steam.
Olly Langton, Belhaven Hill School’s current Headmaster, said: “Jamie spoke brilliantly, weaving humour and pathos into stories that scale the peaks and troughs of elation and despair.
His tales mixed the thrills of sledging at 60kmph down a Venezuelan volcano with the misery of injury and illness, the loneliness of an empty stretch with the solitude of a beautiful expanse.
These were regaled as important and complex experiences, sensitively delivered to an audience that hung on his every word.
“As the opening event of our first Belhaven Wellbeing Weekend, we could not have hoped for a better introduction: an old boy achieving something remarkable having been inspired by his passion for running while at Belhaven.
‘In an age of instant gratification and decreasing physical activity, this was a great boost to our encouragement towards a healthy body and a healthy mind.”
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