relentlessly average
relentlessly average

Miles for Mind 2019

A new month and a new challenge. May 2019 is the second offering of ‘Miles for Mind’ a virtual running event set and supported by the team at Runr (a running lifestyle brand) to raise awareness of mental health issues and raise money for Mind the mental health charity. The idea is to pick a mileage target and during the month of May run those miles and use that to talk about mental health and how, for some, exercise such as running can be really beneficial in helping to live with and manage mental health problems. I consider myself incredibly lucky that, apart from mild anxiety and sometimes low moods from the normal flow of life, I have not suffered more serious mental health problems. However, I know people who have and before I trained as a fitness instructor I worked for a local charity supporting people with severe and enduring mental health problems to get back into work so have seen how difficult it can be to have to live with mental illness. For serious mental illness medical intervention and support should absolutely be the first priority. When it’s possible, in addition to that, some kind of physical exercise and activity can be a really positive thing to help reinforce mental health and physical health. For some it might be swimming or walking, for me it’s running. I find it helpful in so many different ways: time out from normal life where I don’t have to be responsible for anything other than one foot in front of the other; a kind of mindfulness when I let my thoughts tick over but not take over as I also have to concentrate on keeping moving (and not getting run over crossing roads); a feeling of achievement from actually managing to do the thing in the first place and self-esteem that my feet, my legs, my body, ME, did that run. Also the connection and community when you find people willing to listen and share in the seemingly endless running related chat; the sense of purpose that having and following a training plan can give. Which is where this challenge comes in…

Waaaay back about a month in the dizzying, endorphin fuelled highs of ‘this marathon training is going GREAT’ and subsequent fear ‘how am I going to keep going when it’s stopped?’ I signed up for this challenge. The ‘high’ is the only explanation I can come up with for understanding how I decided to set myself a target, which I now consider quite foolishly ambitious, of 150 miles for the month. Foolish because after the marathon tapering and recovery I really lost the momentum and will to go out and do loads of miles and perhaps I underestimated how nice it would be to have a break from that for a while! Ambitious because having now looked back at my training so far this year I was reaching around 110 miles a month so an extra 40 miles on top of that from an almost standing start feels like a big stretch! Having said that, one week in I have run 30 miles already and have a plan for how to get through the rest of the month. I’ve been been reminded yet again that the momentum and will for running loads of miles comes more from the process of actually doing it and committing to just seeing if it’s possible than anything else.

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