I never, ever thought I’d call myself a runner.

Even when I began to suffer increasingly with anxiety, I still couldn’t see the benefit of exercise on my mental health.

I love long-distance walking, but I guess my relationship with real exercise has always been iffy. I hated PE at school; never found a team sport I particularly enjoyed; I’m perpetually terrified of cycling on London’s roads; and although I eventually discovered yoga, the benefits of my practice never quite resonated in the way I hoped it would.

When I lived in Hackney, my flatmate would get home from work then head for the yoga studio a three minute walk away – and more often than not, I’d allow myself to be dragged there too. But if she wasn’t going, it was absurdly easy for me to find an excuse.

“You’ve just washed your hair – it’ll get sweaty!” I’d think. Or, “you’ve just got into a good groove with your work – if you leave now you’ll lose momentum!”

But in the back of my mind, there was always a little voice nudging that I really should be doing some kind of physical activity to keep my fitness levels higher than, say, walking up and down the stairs.

Enter: running.

I downloaded the Couch to 5k app – but I didn’t trust it

There was a park literally outside the door to our flat in Hackney, so it made sense that I should attempt to run around it. After a little bit of research, I found Couch to 5k, which is a free app set up by the NHS. It promises to take you from the sofa to a 5km-worthy runner in just nine weeks, if you do three half hour sessions a week – what’s not to love about that idea?!

For a few weeks I tried to follow the Couch to 5k program religiously. I shuffle-jogged when the disembodied voice of Jo Whiley told me to, and gratefully stopped when she said I could (NB: the first few weeks of the app is based on interval training: you’re tasked with eight repeats of 60 second runs with 90 second walking breaks, which gradually increase to 3 minute runs with 90 second walking breaks and so on). 

But something wasn’t clicking. I could just about manage the runs, but I wasn’t enjoying them. Worse, I started to look for ways to avoid the sessions – and because of my travel schedule, something always stopped my progress around week 5 (which is also when the run lengths increase significantly each session. Coincidence..??)

When I moved back to my family home to care for my terminally ill dad, I started the app again. This time, allowing myself the time to run was like clinging to a life raft: leaving the house for half an hour each morning was one of the few stable moments in that surreal carer journey which I could count on. The immediate physical reactions of my body took precedence over the reality my mind was always focused on.

So you’d be excused for thinking that I would’ve kept on running, right?

Yet when Dad died, all thought of exercise went out of the window.

While I grieved, I couldn’t find the confidence to run

There are so many things people don’t tell you about grief (which I’ve written about at length here). There’s the complete mental and physical exhaustion, for a start, as well as the sudden emotion which comes on suddenly from nowhere – but grief can also have a huge effect on your sense of self-confidence.

I’d already been developing anxieties about my physical safety before my dad’s death, and in the aftermath they got even worse. The need to cry struck me at so many points throughout the day that my house was the only place I felt calm: when I was there, nobody could see me fall apart. If I was outside when the emotion swelled, though – on a bus, in the street, at a pub, in a shop – I’d have a panic attack.

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Read more: a letter to my family house

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As a result, during much of 2018 I’d spend days at a time sobbing in bed. This eventually prompted friends to ask, “Have you tried going for a run? It’s helped before!”

What I found extremely difficult to explain was this: I already felt so battered and bruised by grief that the mere thought of being overwhelmed or unable to complete a run was too much of a defeat before I’d even started. Yes, running had occasionally made me feel better before, and I knew they meant well – but I resented the implication that I’d somehow made ‘going for a run’ into a fix-all solution. 

“It’s not as simple as that!!” I wanted to scream. How could it be, when hearing the suggestion of running made my mind spiral?

First, the sheer process of preparing to run was exhausting: the idea of crawling out of bed, searching for running clothes, finding my trainers, hiding my key somewhere on my body, stepping outside and entering a world I simply didn’t trust.

Next, what utterly terrified me was having to brave the unknown of that realm outside my front door. What if I tripped over in the first minute of jogging? What if I skinned my knee? What if someone saw me and laughed? What if I got a stitch and had to stop and felt like a failure because I couldn’t finish the session? What if I got red in the face and really sweaty and my knee hurt and I suddenly panicked that I was already getting arthritis at age thirty?

No. Much easier to stay inside my house where nothing could hurt me. Where I could cry in peace. Where I had at least some semblance of control.

Surprise! I officially have Generalised Anxiety Disorder!

For anyone who suffers with anxiety, the above thought process probably sounds familiar. But surprisingly enough, although I knew I was anxious a lot of the time it didn’t register that these thoughts weren’t really me.

These anxious thoughts are just thoughts. Thinking them won’t make them happen. They aren’t the truth. 

Thankfully, I started seeing a CBT therapist earlier this year and our sessions have been incredibly helpful. She’s explained to me that after a traumatic experience like losing a parent, my ‘fight or flight’ response is dialled all the way up, so I’m constantly perceiving everyday situations as harmful and destructive. After listing out every possible anxiety I encounter on a regular basis, we’ve been able to group my anxieties into more distinct categories – and in turn, that’s allowing me to distance myself from them and lessen their impact on me somewhat.

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Read more: my self care strategies to improve my mental health

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Working positively on my mental health re-awoke my body to the idea of improving its physical health. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I began my CBT sessions I also started the Couch to 5k app again.

And because I’m more in tune with these wilful changes in mentality at the moment, something in the app really struck me. In one of the Week 2 runs, the narrator (a choice of five voices; I always choose Jo Whiley) says,

“It’s all about changing your mindset. Instead of, ‘I hate running, I hate running,’ just try repeating, ‘I love running, I love running.’ Doing this changed everything for me.”

And as I dutifully repeated that phrase over and over, something inside me just switched. I began to enjoy myself. Not just the post-run endorphins, and not just at moments throughout the run. No – I was actually looking forward to getting outside!!

I found myself getting into a Real Running Routine

For the last two months I’ve gone for a run every few days. Whereas before I’d been looking for excuses to not go outside, now I watch the clock as my favoured running time approaches. I’ve bought proper trainers (the proviso being that every time I consider avoiding a run, I’ll remember how much I spent and be guilt-tripped into it!). I’ve discovered that my pacing works best if I listen to a Punk playlist on Spotify. I even track my route on Strava.

And all this culminated on a hot day in south London, when I found myself running for twenty minutes straight – just under 3km without stopping. The best part? It didn’t even feel particularly difficult!

I’d reached the end of Week 5 in the app, and I was buzzing. But there was a problem. I was about to spend two weeks in Trento, Italy, at the Traverse blogging conference – where there’d no doubt be late nights, hungover mornings, a busy schedule and presumably no time at all to run.

I immediately threw my hands up in resignation – until a friend said, completely reasonably, “Why can’t you just run in Italy?”

It was like a lightbulb had gone off in my head.

Why on earth COULDN’T I run in Italy?!

Nervously, I typed in, ‘Where to run in Trento, Italy’ into Google. I could feel the anxious thought processes revving up in my head, matching time as the page loaded.

“It’ll be way too hot to run there – the forecast says 30’C! You usually run in the early evenings and that won’t happen, there’ll be parties to go to. Besides, I bet there’s nowhere good to run, no parks or anything – and even if there are, the only good places might be miles away from your Airbnb. And what if it’s not safe? What if someone jumps you?”

The search page loaded. Bam. Right in the middle of Trento, Google maps showed me a cycle path beside a river. It looked stunning.

Better than that. It looked PERFECT.

My first ever international run

The night before I flew to Italy, still nervous about whether or not I’d manage any runs during the fortnight, I did a hasty session on the pavements surrounding my house (Week 6, session 1, which meant runs of 5 mins, 8 mins, and 5 mins with gaps in between). It was a little daunting but I managed it – and I knew that meant two runs of 10 minutes apiece in Italy.

Once I arrived in Trento, it was immediately apparent that factoring in a run would be hard. But on my third night I barely drank any alcohol, and woke the next morning at 8am with a clear head and that newly-familiar sensation fizzing in my blood. I WANTED TO RUN.

Headphones into my ears, keys tucked inside my bra, sunglasses on my face (who knew if they’d fall off but it was way too sunny outside not to wear them), I skipped down the three flights of stairs and into the streets of Trento.

It was already 25’C at the river, and I wasn’t sure if running for two sets of 10 minutes (Week 6, session 2) in this heat was going to work – but I’d apparently made up my mind, because when Jo Whiley’s voice told me to run, I JUST BLOODY RAN.

And it was incredible.

From the moment my feet hit the tarmac I felt empowered. I felt delirious. I couldn’t believe I was running in northern Italy, surrounded by the most stunning views – and by the time the second set of ten minutes started, I was wildly snapping selfies and videos of myself and the river, the mountains, and the trees.

I wouldn’t have wiped that grin off my face if you’d paid me.

Has running cured my anxiety?

I keep reminding myself that there probably isn’t a magic fix for my anxiety. Instead, I have to learn techniques to keep it in check. Thankfully, running is doing wonders for pulling me back into the real world and being slightly less afraid of all the things which might (yet probably won’t) happen. Other lovely offsets include:

• Feeling less self conscious. If people see me sweaty and red in the face, so goddamn what?!

• Feeling motivated. Running motivates me to get out of the house, and I haven’t spent three days sobbing in bed for months.

• Being able to see such a clear progression in my endurance levels. Realising that I’m actually upping my ability to run further is EXTRAORDINARY!

• Actually wanting to go for a run. I never thought it would happen, but after sitting at a desk all day my legs are urging me to head for the park.

Case in point: the afternoon I flew back from Italy (after nine days without running) I pulled on my trainers, began jogging slowly, and within the first few minutes I felt the sluggishness begin to fall away. It wasn’t the easiest of runs, but I could sense how it was affecting my body and my mind.

It’s surreal to say this – but I actually think I love running.

Which is why I just signed up for my first ever 5km run on July 21st – a Cancer Research UK ‘Race for Life’.  Hopefully in a month’s time I’ll be ready for it. Watch this space!

What’s your stance on exercise and mental health? Have you found running helps with your anxiety?

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Read more:

• Self care strategies to improve my mental health

• Running my first 5K race

• The joy of an online community

• What makes you happy?