I have been struggling a bit recently with my mental health, as a lot of people do. (My mum and dad will probably read this - don’t worry, I’m fine.) I was speaking to someone recently and they suggested I needed to work on my self-esteem, which they thought would lift my overall mood. As an aside, it might seem strange to those who have paid to come to shows to watch us that anyone on stage might have low self-esteem, but then people are strange, aren’t they?
I had read about parkrun’s recent anniversary (15 years of the free, global gathering of walkers, joggers and runners for a 5km event) and thought - well, that sounds nice, and in a perfect world I’d like to have a go, but it poses many problems for me. Number one is that I hate running. I have always found it to be extraordinarily boring, and found myself to be extraordinarily bad at it. I look and feel stupid when I run and therefore try not to do it in public. Furthermore, I have always very strongly been of the opinion that not only is running itself boring, but people who run are boring, and even worse than that are the people who talk about running. It’s just boring. Stop it.
However, I really needed to change something so, after a false start last week when I bottled out of going, this week I made myself do it. I really didn’t want to, and was worried everyone else would hare off leaving me trudging along on my own and feeling even worse. On turning up, there was a broad mix of people - I tried to avoid the ones proudly wearing marathon t-shirts and doing ostentatious stretching (note: in my opinion any stretching is ostentatious) and look for others who, like me, had cobbled together various bits of ill-fitting kit and, thankfully, there were quite a few of them.
When the event started to change for me was when the head local volunteer (parkrun events are run by volunteers and free to attend) started to speak. There was a ‘welcome’ round of applause for any new joiners (I belatedly put my hand up) and separate rounds of applause for those who’d reached 25, 50 or 100 parkrun milestones. I thought - well, this is nice. And then they mentioned the Halloween run next week and invited people to dress up and I thought - yes, this is nice.
As a generally anxious person I was concerned about a few things - mostly, what on earth do I do with this barcode (answer: you just hand it in at the end along with the token you’re given when you finish) and what happens if I’m at the back and get lost? Thankfully the route was fully and carefully explained (and signed along the way, along with volunteers clapping as you walk, jog or run past - I’ve never been clapped in my life for any form of running, and I have to say it was a welcome novelty) and, when we set off, I found to my great relief that there were plenty of people like me who were fairly intent on going as slowly as possible.
Anyway - long story short, I did it, even though I didn’t want to, even though I worried about looking like an idiot, being embarrassed, hate running and hearing about running and nearly all forms of exercise. And I know this is hardly a novel revelation, but despite all of that, I felt really good afterwards, like I’d actually achieved something. It helped a lot that the atmosphere was so friendly and non-competitive (and non-judgmental, unlike me). But basically all of this is really to say that I suspect there are lots of people like me out there, and this is something that I think really helped my mood and will hopefully continue to as I am now intent on going back. I promise not to become (even more) boring by banging on about it, though.
So if you are struggling, feeling low, maybe just about getting by - from one sufferer to another - please give it a go. I think it will make you feel better.