Jade Lally has had glittering career winning seven British titles as well as holding the English record for the discus. Alongside these successes she is also a seasoned Team England athlete having competed for Team England at three Commonwealth Games in Delhi 2010, Glasgow 2014 and Gold Coast 2018. 

With a career best result coming in Scotland where she was able to win a bronze medal.

Despite these appearances and successes, Lally has been open about her struggles with mental health, which came to the fore when she became pregnant for the first time. 

The prospect of juggling a newly born baby and the potential effect it would have on her athletic ability whilst pregnant had a knock-on effect on her mental wellbeing. With her key thought being; what would be the direct impact on her performance and potential to qualify for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

She spoke to us on the challenges she went through and how individuals can help tackle their mental health issues that they may currently be facing during Covid-19.

“We’ve all been through challenging times in our life and career and it’s about how we deal with those challenges head on and how we come out of them the other side. I personally have been through pregnancy and was very open and honest with how I felt and how I dealt with that.

I found it a huge struggle and wanted to put it out there to the masses to see if anyone else felt the same because I just believed I couldn’t be the only one. Luckily, I received quite a lot of love back and it reassured me that I didn’t have to go through this alone and didn’t have to keep my head down and just deal with it completed isolated. There were a lot of people the same way.

At the moment we are all in lockdown and although we hope the end is near. We are still dealing with this new way of life and we are being forced into an isolation that we are just not used to. These are challenging times for us, but I do honestly believe how we deal with this as individuals and collectively and how we are going to come out the other side. For me I think keeping my head down and being able to crack on with the job that I was planning to do has helped focus me in a way that it normally wouldn’t do. 

Summer has arrived and hopefully by the end of this year we are going to have some sort of season, so whatever you are doing, keep your head down, keep pushing because the end is coming, and this is not going to last forever. The end is near.