As one door closes, another opens.
It started the day I had planned to run Amsterdam Marathon. I had the best reason for not making the start line, the birth of my baby boy Benji. What better a reason than that. In between nappy changes and naps ( Benji not me) I was able to load up the tracker and watch the hard work of the last few months pay off for my running buddies, who were lining up as I was brewing up.
I couldn’t help but have a large feeling of FOMO ( Fear Of Missing Out) and I was slightly jealous that they were there running, and I wasn’t. Since Stirling, the motivation has waned a little, and there was always a reason to miss a run or skip a session…it was just easy to let the Chimp over ride the Professor ( The Chimp Paradox).
I had long since received my “commiserations” mail from London Marathon, and I had set my mind on running Edinburgh marathon but my head hadn’t been in it enough to actually sign up yet, but I was going to . Watching the dots going around my screen like a scalectrix through the streets of Amsterdam, inspired me. I have watched my buddies show true grit to complete the marathon, going from 5km to marathon by following a plan – believing in themselves and their training partners and now the their hard work was paying off. I wanted the feeling that Stirling brought, the feeling that the guys were going through during their medal selfies and celebratory pints, …..PING ( my phone messenger – all was about to change).
” Hi James, I just had a thought, Would you like to run the London Marathon representing Mental Health Aberdeen?”
YES – YES I would.
I couldn’t believe it. If you follow my instagram page ( If you don’t – @physiorun) you will see that Mental Health in athletes and wellness is a huge interest of mine. Working in success and failure, the emotional stress of training, life, work, relationships on daily life has been a huge personal study area for my. It has allowed my practise to flourish and adapt for the client needs. How better a way to tie my huge interest in Mental Health and running than to use the blog to help me research these areas and learn about coping mechanisms and strategies etc……and raise awareness for a local charity in Aberdeen that provides counselling and information services to adults and young people experiencing difficulties related to their mental health and wellbeing.
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* Please click on the links and follow their pages*
Did you know that Mental Health Aberdeen was formed in 1950, making it one of the oldest charities working with people experiencing mental health difficulties. Nope – me either, in fact there is so much about MHA that I didn’t know and so much that I will learn over the next few months. Start by dropping past their website or give them a follow (@mentalhealthaberdeen).
Mental health affects us all, up until recently it was a TABOO subject. The recent #itsoktonotbeok has highlighted that mental health will vary with mood, tiredness, chemical balance in the body and also time of year and that it is okay to feel like this. Awareness and knowing that there are people out there, in fact friendly faces at the end of a telephone line, to help offer advice has never been so important.
My goal of the direction of the blog is to highlight different mental health challenges that training for a marathon has, speak with lots of different people regarding their mental health and how they prepare for challenging events and also try to raise awareness of Mental Health and offer hints on management strategies.
(I will also look to PB sub 3:30 at London – there I said it) I left the small print until the end.
To support this fantastic cause, drop past my page below…any help would be gratefully received and this is what the money goes towards.
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/physiorun
I am so excited and very lucky to have been given this opportunity, please feel free to ask any questions and like #project345 I look forward to the journey with all your support.
Thanks For Reading
Run Long and Prosper
James
