Mental health, mileage and me

When I first started to learn to run I was the ultimate non-running cliché. Known to say loudly that I wouldn't even run for a bus, I took perverse pride in my state as a natural non-runner. I wasn't built for it and when I gave it a go... it hurt!  Who would want to inflict that on themselves?  As my 40s loomed large, a spark of interest flickered into life and I realised it was now or never to really make a difference to my physical health.  Others had tried the 'Couch-to-5k' approach and it had worked for them - but I firmly believed it would not apply to me and set out to prove this to be the case!

On a grim January morning, at a little known nature-reserve in Notts, I put on my ugly, clompy, grey trainers, downloaded the NHS Couch-to-5k app and set off.  It was excruciating!  No-one saw me.  NO ONE!  I would have been mortified if they had. I was officially obese (having given up looking after myself when my father died very suddenly), and as unlike a runner as a house brick.  The app cheerfully announced eight repeats of one minute's run, followed by a 90 second walk.  Each of those little minutes was an exercise in tooth-gritting pain.  Eight repeats of the longest minutes on the planet.  Eight minutes can seem like a lifetime... especially if your brain has decided to take up chanting an enthusiastic chorus of 'kill me now' by the fifth repetition!

Because I am massively stubborn (and given a structure I will stupidly and slavishly follow it!), I stuck with it.  Through the cold sludge of January, the relentless grey of February and bluster of March, I arrived in April and could  run-huff my way for 3 miles. No, it wasn't pretty, but already my body was surprising me.  I'd lost 3 stones in weight and felt I'd regained control over my eating / snacking.

To my bewilderment, I'd started to feel good about what my body could do.  Whereas before, my main achievements were averagely academic, suddenly I had become physically more capable. Each run I could manage a little further. A little faster.  It wasn't exactly enjoyable... it was seriously hard work... but a friend had said to give it 6 months before it clicked, so I did.  Guess what?  He was right. All of a sudden I fancied going for a run.  Mrs 'not even running for a bus'.  Yup.  Me. That one.

Then, within a year and with a few races under my belt, I'd braved running with others, set up a running club (I'm not one for half measures!), completed a few parkruns and felt my confidence increase.  It was a revelation. Then, life came screeching to a halt.  Literally.  One sunny Sunday evening in September, my family and I were involved in a fatal head-on collision with a motorcyclist who rode straight through the bonnet of our car at 70mph.  It was utterly devastating. My life went from having a good work-life balance, happy family life, taking care of things financially to a mess of terrible guilt, flashbacks and deteriorating mental health.

Despite all this, the onset of PTSD, the rearing of a long-buried eating disorder and severe depression / anxiety that would prove cruelly resistant to treatment, part of me refused to give up on my running.

It became my calm in the storm.  Anchoring me to the present. I would never have believed that running could be more than mastering the mechanics of moving one foot in front of the other whilst trying not to expire.  Yet something about its rhythmic calm seemed to make sense when nothing else did. I clung on to the breathing space and security it had established in my life.

Each day, no matter how short or slow the run turned out to be, I laced up my trainers and headed out.  As I ran, my mind calmed.  Flashbacks from the accident, anxiety, the threat of panic attacks and the like receded.  It was just me and motion.  Meditation on the move.  At first, I ran on my own, unable to face the gentle runners' chit chat normally shared on a route.  The very act of being out there and claiming a small piece of the day made sense.

The more obvious benefits of exercise - improved health, improved fitness, improved sleep - seemed not to matter so very much when it came to helping me deal with the nightmare I'd found myself in. It turned out that keeping running actually wasn't about exercise at all.  It was a way of holding on to something more than that. To the outside world at least, Sarah was still Sarah. I didn't know who I was anymore, but I wasn't going to let the accident take my running as well as everything else. I wouldn't let go. I couldn't.

Five years later, I still run as much as I can.  I've had multiple hospital admissions, the depression and PTSD have nearly taken my life on several occasions, the eating disorder still rules every day, countless hours of tear-stained therapy, more medication than most pharmacies... but I still run.  When I run I am free.  When I run I am quieting the noise in my head.  When I run, I listen to the steady patter of my feet and am soothed by the quiet rhythm of my breath. I feel the sharp cold of a Winter's morning and the soft rain of a Spring evening. I say hello to the dog walkers in the park and they chat to me as I go by. I am conscious of the strength in my limbs. It's powerful and beautiful.

You know what though? I am not running away. I'm not really running anywhere. When I run I'm not poor, pathetic Sarah whose life disappeared one Autumn dusk... I am me.

I run for me.  I run to *be* me.  And while I'm able to run, I can hold on for another day.