Jess Warner-Judd is celebrating her “second chance” at the London Marathon after epilepsy threatened to curtail her running career.
The 31-year-old suffered a mid-race seizure during the 10,000m final at the 2024 European championships in Rome, leading to confirmation of the neurological disorder and surprise diagnoses of autism and depression during the confronting process of trauma therapy.
The middle and long-distance runner finished her PhD in regenerative medicine at Loughborough in December 2024, completing her thesis while adjusting to the side-effects of new medication, and last year made her marathon debut in New York, finishing in two hours, 24 minutes and 45 seconds to claim a surprise seventh place.
“I think it felt harder just because it was something completely out of my control,” said Warner-Judd, recalling Rome. “It’s not anything I did wrong in training, I didn’t overdo it and get injured, it was something completely out of the blue.
“It was hard to get back from, and I think it does feel like a second chance. I’m just really lucky and really grateful to have good medical help, and people to actually get me to this point, because when I started to run on the track again I didn’t realise how much of Rome I’d taken in.
“I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t really remember anything, it’s fine, I’ll just get back’, and then it was only when I tried to do that I realised there was a subconscious trauma response, like my brain just wasn’t letting me race. It was like starting all over again.”
The sometimes “bizarre” process of trauma therapy involved invoking some of the sensations from that scary day, and Warner-Judd admits she “really did struggle” with her mental health, while the process also led to her autism and depression diagnoses.
She said: “As hard as it was to hear, it was nice to have ‘that’s happened now, this is what I have, this is rock bottom, this is the medication I have and we just move on and we deal with it’.”
Warner-Judd says marathon training felt like a “bit of a release”, and she now feels like she “has a future again in this sport”.
She and husband Rob have moved to rural Lancashire, where, discovering she needed “something else to do”, Warner-Judd accepted a job on the deli counter at Booths Supermarket – even though she has retained sponsors Hoka, who encouraged her to think about the marathon.
Work has provided another “outlet” and a community of supportive colleagues, who learned about the athlete in their midst after her success in New York and presented Warner-Judd with a plate of 26 different cheeses – one for each mile – ahead of her London race.
Even the mental challenge of the marathon is a bit therapeutic for Warner-Judd, who has swapped the track for training in the rural hills.
She added: “Once I’d had all my structured (therapy) sessions, you think, ‘Oh, I’ve got nothing to lose now’, taking the pressure completely off.
“I just saw it as a completely fresh start and then just started feeling happier again in running.”
