World Mental Health Awareness Day

Today is World Mental Health Awareness day and the theme for 2022 is 'Make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority' and it's been on my "to do" list to write a blog post about this theme for #RunAndTalk for ages, but I've not necessarily been taking my own advice and making writing, something that is very important to me, a priority. However, before it hits midnight...I will get this post out!

With everything that is going on around the world from the cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine, climate change and the aftermath of covid there is much to make us think that good mental health is just a "nice to have" on top of our basic needs, but in reality the line between physical and mental good health is not really a line at all as the two are so closely interlinked. I was fortunate enough to be invited to #LIFI2022 (by the lovely Claire Booth who sadly couldn't make it on the evening) and watched a panel discussion chaired by Bryony Gordon speaking to Gail Porter, Luke Ambler (Founder of Andy's Man Club), David Harewood and Sarah Hughes CEO of Centre for Mental Health and the topic was "How do we talk about Mental Health?" The conversation and stories shared were incredibly moving, distressing and laugh out loud funny and at the Q&A I was able to ask my question that was as a Mental Health Champion and leader of #runandtalk I was aware supporting people is sometimes tough for an empathetic person and I believe it's important to put your own airmask on first so you can continue to help others. The panel all had great ways to ensure they retained good mental health including, singing, dancing, walking their dog, getting out into green spaces and down the bed with their kids for a big cuddle. (PS I kinda want Sarah Hughes to run as PM as she's so clear and direct on what needs to change to make the bigger improvements we all need! She made the complete point that without our basic needs being met - food, shelter, warmth - then we can't prioritise mental health and that the government and Labour party must do more!)

Like many things, if you don't prioritise your own mental health and the mental health of those close to you it will potentially reach a crisis point when you have no option to take a step back and make it your priority.

I'm not one of those people that is going to tell you that you can "choose your hard" and that you have choice over how to react to any challenges that life throws at you as sometimes you just won't have the mental resilience to do so.  And as much as I love running and know that the benefits to my mental and physical health through being active is immeasurable, I also recognise that some people can't run or be active in the same way and so instead I what I will say is try as hard as you can to every day take 10 minutes to do something that you know is positive towards your mental health and do that - for me it looks like:

📚 10 minutes of reading as I drink my coffee before heading out to work

🏃🏻‍♀️ Going for a walk/run around somewhere green and within daylight (Really important at this time of year to leave the house/office and see the daylight for a few mintues!)

👩‍❤️‍👨🐈‍⬛🐈 Spending time with my husband and cats

🎨🖌10 minutes of arts/craft/creative writing

🙋🏻‍♀️ Volunteering (as a guide leader or run leader)

I often find that a quick few minutes writing in my diary at the end of the day and a few moments planning a short (and importantly achieveable) to - do list helps me prioritise the things that contribute well to my own mental health.

Last week, I also prioritised my mental health by spending some time chatting to a Burn Out Coach This time last year I took two months off work inbetween jobs for a variety of reasons. Reflecting now I could sense at the time I was overwhelmed, but now I know I was definitely burnt out and my personal resilience levels were very limited from both stressful events in relation to my family who live 5 hours drive away and a particularly unpleasant set of events at work that essentially constituted constructive dismissal and meant I had to resign with no role lined up in advance. 

Ultimately I thought that taking 2 months off work would be all I needed to recover, but the persistent low level migraine headaches returned after I'd stopped taking medication and they are still around to this day despite my work situation improving signficantly. 

From my brief conversation I've identified a couple of key things that I'm now more aware of including the fact that it's very easy to focus on what I've not achieved at the end of the working day, rather than the positives and that I potentially have unrealistic expectations of myself on what I *should* manage to get done. I'm trying to now make a note of at least 6 things each day that I have achieved. I am also not great at delegating work which has potentially held me back from progressing my career in the past and my coach identified that re-framing this view as limiting the potential for those in my team to achieve more if I don't give them opportunties to take on extra work. And then ultimately she identified that I can be someone who is sometimes too willing to take on the problems of others, I am a good listener, and even better problem solver, but I'm really not good at telling someone when I need help myself or that I don't have the resilience to support them and can be a bit like a sponge taking on too much for everyone else. Somehow I must try and learn how to ask for help as it's something that I find almost impossible to do.

Investing in my conversation with a Burnout Coach isn't really that different to speaking to a running coach or hiring a personal trainer, but it's a bit harder to identify some tangible benefits and impact they are having as you can see your performance improve/measure your running times more easily in a physical sense.  When it comes to mental health, it's likely we get to quite a far gone point before we'd seek help and support and much like running, if we get that niggle investigated early on it's less likely to become an ongoing issue causing us chronic pain.

Finally as a Mental Health First Aider I would also encourage anyone who feels as though they are at breaking point to reach out to someone and start a conversation and equally anyone who is worried about someone in their life, maybe today invite them out for a walk/coffee/chat as caring for others can be as good for your mental health as it is for theirs. And please please do check on your most helpful and supportive people in your life...there is a good chance they are the worst people to know how to ask for their own help!

As always there are plenty of resources available on the #RunAndTalk page and please reach out if you need any extra help signposting yourself to the right support, or want to know where to signpost someone else.

Co - working Spaces

In my new job, I work in a co-working space if I have a meeting, or just want a bit of a change of scenary. Today I was in the co-working space with no particular agenda.

It's a trendy place where I feel both overdressed and underdressed at the same time. There are exposed ducts and brickwork and I look out through large windows onto the old Majestics nightclub building that I spent hours losing my friends whilst we danced with our hands in the air trying to catch lasers. It's now been burned down and then rebuilt as offices for Channel 4, but I've not seen anyone particularly interesting around there. In fact much like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, no one ever seems to go in and nobody ever comes out.

There is apparently a roof terrace, I should ask one of the front desk staff to show me, but I feel like I've been there awkwardly too many times to be asking now, but when I hunted by myself following signs around the building I nervously and purposefuly walked up and down the same corridor before diving into the stairwell and down the stairs before anyone noticed me.

The biggest positive to the space is the coffee machine that will make a latte, cappuccino or americano by just pushing a button and the three different types of tea (English Breakfast, Green Tea and Morrocan Mint Tea) all available to sip during the day. The tea bags are all neatly presented in glass jars with labels explaining the ideal temperature for the water for each tea, but there being no way of changing the temperature of the water that comes out of the "tea" setting of the coffee machine.

In the handful of times I've been there I've observed some interesting behaviour including: 

The interview I overheard between a very young graduate age man and the CEO of a recruitment business that should have been left behind in the late 80s (if indeed should have been allowed to happen) 'Would you speak to your friends like that?' he asked the smartly, awkwardly dressed waffling apprentice type. I pretended to not be listening and spoke to my contacts like normal people wondering if I'd perhaps turned invisible or whether I was exactly invisible to people with egos the size of the CEO?

Today there was a woman who appeared to work for another recruitment firm. She was wearing a smart black strappy jump suit and seemed to be fairly corporate, but was spending a long time on a teams call with a man discussing ingredients for breakfast sandwiches "ketchup and tomato in that one, no, no, no, hash brown, and yes sausage and no, no, no" she stamped her feet visibly angered by the responses she was getting 'crack on, just crack on' she shouted and then hung up, retreating to a table where I heard further breakfast ingredient discussions. I wonder what her job was, she wasn't organising an event from what I could tell and she did mention the word "allergens" several times?

Calderdale Way Relay

I thought I'd run this twice before, but because of an often clash with my birthday, the last time I ran this race was 2017 and I had a chance to do a decent recce beforehand. I remember it being tough, but beautiful and I love a team relay. 

This year I had been training hard for the Vegas Half Marathon and my fitness was starting to come back, so when Danni was asking for people interested it seemed like a great time to sign up. I ran a 2 hour 8 minute time at the Vegas Half on the 27th February and on the 26th March I ran a 24.31 minute parkrun at Pontefract and was finally feeling that after injuries and illness I was getting my fitness back, only the following day I inevitably tested positive for Covid after avoiding it for 4 days after Alan had tested positive.

We were both fortunate to "recover" pretty quickly with us both testing postive for around 10 days and not needing any additional medical support, but trying to run or be active afterwards has really been more challenging that I would have predicted with my garmin proudly declaring recovery times of 60+ hours after a parkrun!

All credit to Danni for managing to arrange a team, the logistics and chase us all for payment and signatures and I was allocated leg 6 again (handy as I didn't get a chance to recce) and she had also paired me up with Jed who I've run with a few times in Groups 3 and 4 before catching Covid. I knew I'd likely be slower than the last time I ran the relay and so was slightly worried when I saw Jed had run a 1 hour 34 Leeds Half Marathon the weekend before the relay! I told him that he'd potentially hate me by the end of the relay as I'd not managed further than 7 miles post covid!

I prepped my kit the night before digging out a running rucksack, the print out of the route, a compass, full body waterproofs, hat and gloves...and no-one checked my bag this time. I also downloaded the route onto my garmin to help if I didn't remember where we were going from the last time.

We planned our travel logistics and I drove to Leeds and picked Jed up and then we got stuck in a very long queue of traffic for the Leeds match, fortunately we'd left a load of time (meeting at 12pm to hopefully get there in 30 minutes) we managed to find a parking space on the road near the start and I grabbed a packed of crisps and used the toilet in a pub nearby. 

Registration was swift and we had about 45 minutes to wait before the mass start and we watched a few teams pass over the baton as we waited for 2pm to arrive.

They set us all off and we piled off down the grassy hill and into the woods where there were a few traffic jams at tighter parts of the route. It was a really warm day and the sun had come out and so we got to run across bluebell lined paths and up and down slopes to the path along a field. 

Fortunately much of the route was familar to me as I do have a decent memory for recalling routes I've done previously, even if it's been a few years, but having a few people up ahead to follow (and occasionally behind to tell us when we were taking a slightly wrong turn) was really useful. 

I had conveniently forgotten just how hilly Leg 6 is with around 477m of elevation across 17.2km route. I got through the first 10K reasonably swiftly in just over an hour and seven minutes with Jed not having to wait for me too much (although I suspect he was very much running at a slower pace than he could have done!) but then for the next 7km I really needed to employ the tactic of walking up all of the hills and indeed along a fair chunk of the flat sections. 

The views as usual were beautiful which almost made the fact I had to walk like a Gorilla up at least 90% of the uphill sections worthwhile and running down the long stretch onto the last section of the canal at the end was definitely good fun!

We got around to the finish and took a slight detour along the road rather than the field, but were able to spot a rather tempting looking ice cream van and we finished in 2 hours 21 which is a good 20 minutes slower than my last attempt, but I'm really glad I managed to get around and finish it. 

We rewarded ourselves at the ice cream van and took a walk to the bus station to get a bus back to the start to pick up my car. Note for future runners the 508 bus goes from Leeds right to the start and it's only 10 minutes walk to the bus station which can make car logistics a bit easier.

I still feel bad that Jed had to slow down and walk/wait for me as much as he did, but I think we both had an enjoyable run out through Halifax and as much as I might regret it later, I do still think I want to do it again...only this time I'll definitely train more and try my best to avoid pandemic diseases!

#runandtalk and Mental Health Awareness Week

Today was a Tuesday, but not a first Tuesday, but as it's Mental Health Awareness Week with a theme of loneliness I put on an extra session as I know that many people would potentially benefit from company if they were feeling lonely.

I've been posting each day on LinkedIn as well to tie in with the theme and I'm hoping that it makes a difference to some people.

I've loved being more social again in the past few months, but it's still quite jarring to get used to and so at times I've had to force myself a bit, or nudge might be the right word to make sure that I do things to make me feel positive and social. I don't want to slip back into a more hermit like existence as I did before 2010 when I joined WI and made lots of really important friends. 

The run was nice as we found some ginnels or maybe snicketts that I wasn't familiar with, saw an interesting carving from a tree in Woodhouse Ridge and some rabbits back on campus and then we had a quick drink and chat at Nation of Shopkeepers where I've not been for years. 

Habits & Nicholas Cage

This year has been a year of interruptions and distractions. Some have been positive like going away on holiday for the first time in 2 years to LA and Las Vegas to run the Las Vegas Half Marathon and some have been less positive (or maybe more positive) such as catching covid on the 27th March 4 days after Alan had a headache and took a test.

I'm now reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, well I'm actually listening to it via Audible and it's reminded me of a very useful tip that I gained on an Arvon Master Class by David Quantick in 2020, bascially along the lines of writing being like exercise, if you do some of it every day, it becomes easier to do more of it and get better at it. 

Covid interrupted all of my healthy habits - exercise, daylight, social interaction, volunteering and more and it created some negative ones - downloading more computer games, lack of ability to sleep at a sensible time with not as many physical cues. It also massively increased my screentime and probably alcohol consumption as well. The brain fog and forgetfulness on top of headaches have also made reading hard.

One month on and I'm starting to feel a bit better, but shifting back to healthy habits has been more of a challenge. Atomic Habits has had some helpful suggestions such as "Habit Stacking" where I'll try and tag on healthy additional habits to things I'm already doing i.e. if I go for a run, I'll come back and do 10 minutes of resistance and stretching rather than having to do it at a separate time late in the evening. Also facing a Tough Mudder in August I desperately need to get back into the gym, so I've suggested to Alan that after parkrun each Saturday we can head to the gym for a quick workout as we'll already be in workout gear and won't have to get showered an additional time.

This weekend has been a fairly productive and slightly more normal one. On Friday we went to Sainsburys and stocked up on groceries and then on Saturday I did an Arvon class with Jessica Andrews which has given me some great ideas to get my novel back on track including that if I'm feeling a bit bored, it's not necessarily because the novel itself is boring (although there's a risk if you write bored, you'll bore your reader) but that it can be self-doubt or just impatience and that potentially (although she doesn't necessarily use this method herself) starting a new project makes it less important to make the existing project "perfect". Consequently, I'm going to try and blog more, journal more, free write more which will hopefully make me more creative and inspired to finish the novel. It also feeds into one of the Atomic Habits chapters where it mentions a study where photography students were put into groups to either be graded on quantity (100 photos needed to be submitted) or quality (1 perfect photo to be submitted) the first group ended up producing better work as they just experimented more and were more practised photographers.

Yesterday I moved the furniture around in my office so that the sofabed is now against the wall facing the bookcase and the window. The entrance is now slightly obstructed, but I can sit on the sofa and read looking at my books (accessing all the shelves) and also looking out of the window. Alan is less impressed with my efforts, but I'm pleased with how it feels now in this room. We also went on our first longer run and did 7 miles to Fairburn and back with a bit of walking, but we got there ok.

This morning I mostly set up a spreadsheet for guides, learning some new excel tips from both YouTube and Alan's help. I then went for a run and dropped off a book as a present for my friend Gem's little girl's belated birthday and then stretched as soon as I'd got back from the run. 

We then went shopping for some chefs knives and lightweight camping chairs at the Junction 32 outlet, had Pizza Express for tea and watched The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. I loved it as I do love Con Air and this was a very clever, very funny very action packed film with lots of self referential stuff that made me smile. It was just what I needed in terms of escapism and I massively recommend it.

A new approach to new year's resolutions

Year after year I would write resolutions that were challenging and pretty much year long, which is a long time to keep up the energy of depriving yourself of something or doing more of something. 

My 20 things 20 times in 2020 and then 21 things in 2021 were inspiring, but again with a distanced view of a year it was easy to fall behind and feel a little bit disallusioned on some of the things I was working towards, so this time I have a new strategy. I will have daily, monthly and yearly goals and I'll revise my monthly goals depending on how the month has gone. Importantly they'll all be focussed on doing more good things, than trying to do fewer bad things.

Daily

• 10 minutes of reading (at least)
• 10 minutes of writing (at least)
• 10 minutes of daylight (at least)
• Only have treat food (chocolate, takeaway or booze) if I've had my 5 a day fruit and veg
• 10 minutes of activity - cardio or resistance (at least) 
• In bed to allow enough time to sleep for c8 hours
• 10 minutes of physio exercises
• Listen to one new piece of music every day
• 1 hour everyday away from social media/phone

Monthly

• Read 4 - 5 books (4.33 is needed to hit my target of 52 in the year)
• One new place visited
• One walk in a beautiful location
• One thing planted
• One item/box/bag donated to charity/recycled
• One blog post (at least)
• One gym visit/strength session
• One new film watched
• One catch up with friends
• One craft session
• One letter/postcard
• Lead/coach one run club session
• One live music/theatre/comedy trip (either attended or booked)
• 12 days veggie only

Yearly

• Run 2022 K or 1256.4 miles
• Hit my work budget target
• Finish the first draft of my novel and have at least 1 person to read it and give me feedback
• 250th parkrun

21 things 21 times in 2021

This year's challenges felt far more...well challenging, some of that was from ongoing Covid issues, some of it was from challenges from things that happened to my family that were serious and unexpected and some from work changes. All in all though I'm pleased with what I did achieve and it was a useful structure to follow for the year, but I've got some different plans for 2022!

Here's a quick review!

1 - Complete 21 bike rides outside - erm...I only managed this once!

2 - Donate to charity / recycle 21 bags/boxes/items of stuff - This was better, depending on how strict I am - I definitely did 21 items!

3 - Go to 21 yoga or pilates sessions.- I kinda lost count, but I've checked on garmin and I did 20 sessions of Pilates and 3 of Yoga so achieved!

4 - Write 21 letters or postcards - I didn't do as well with letterwriting and we didn't really manage to go anywhere where postcard writing was feasible, but if I include Christmas cards I sent with notes in then - achieved!

5 - Complete at least 21 crafting sessions - either alone or even better with friends - I only managed 10, but 3 were in person with friends which was nice! Next year I'll buy myself another Craftadvent calender!

6 - 21 blog entries - either weekly summary or topic specific - Not achieved as only managed 6, but I did do lots of other writing!

7 - 21 sessions of mindfulness - Ideally I'd do this everyday, but I'm not great at always remembering, so this is a nice achievable target. - If I count using the headspace app to get to sleep, this was definitely achieved, but I need to do more active mindfulness ideally!

8 - 21 walks in lovely places - So I counted 14, but I think that some of the very long days on our Hadrian's Wall challenge probably count as more than 1 and I didn't count walks around the village with my neighbour and they were in lovely places, but didn't feel as count worthy! My absolutely favourite place was Malham, it was the first time this year that my ongoing headache/low level migraine actually went away for a bit before I started taking Amitrptyline.

9 - Leading/backmarking/coaching at least 21 run club sessions in person or remotely - So I lead/backmarked in person 19 times and developed I think 6 sessions for the summer mile training programme, so I am going to say this was achieved!

10 - Volunteer at least 21 times - Between guides, vaccine stewarding and parkrun I have achieved this, but hope to do a bit more in 2022, especially at parkrun.

11 - Meet friends for coffee/lunch/catch ups at least 21 times - a couple of these were on zoom, but excitingly most were in person!

12 - Read 21 books - I read 29, have been so happy to get back into reading in the past 2 years.

13 - Watch 21 new films - I think I probably managed this, although I've only written 12 down, however we did join Cineworld Unlimited and have actually seen 3 films (Dune, Ghostbusters Afterlife and No Time to Die) in the cinema which was great!

14 - Learn 21 grammar topics - despite studying English Language and Literature at University and attending a "grammar" school I never understand what people are talking about with tenses, first person etc to the level I want to, so I'm going to challenge myself to learn 21 new topics around this to help with my writing. - Nope...I don't think I was really engaged by this one

15 - Have 21 days where I complete a social media rest - i.e. don't check Facebook etc - messages from actual humans is ok! - Nope...I think I probably need to try a bit harder though and perhaps set myself targets during the day instead.

16 - Visit 21 new places (not countries, just different places that I've not been before, whether a restaurant, or a nice place to walk - my Yorkshire Wildlife Trust membership gives me lots of ideas) - I only wrote down 18 places, but again I'd count the fact our walking holiday took us to muliple places on the same day. I think one of my favourites again was Malham, but I also loved Riley's Fish Shack

17 - Visit the gym / do home work outs 21 times - Didn't really manage this, still haven't been back to the gym post Covid (so nearly 2 years!). Alan did persuade me to try to learn to ski so we have been skiing at Xscape 6 times.

18 - Plant 21 "things" whether seed bombs or vegetables. I managed 13 different varities of plants and multiples of these, so this was achieved!

19 - Watch 21 live music/comedy/guest readings - on zoom or hopefully some in person - By going to - Managed to achieve this with End of the Road festival seeing Hot Chip the following week at Heaton Park and also the funniest online zoom I've ever seen with Offmenu Podcast with James Acaster and Ed Gamble.

20 -  Eat entirely veggie for 21 days - I did achieve this on quite a few days, but kept forgetting to count, so hopefully, but not sure!

21 - Complete 21 chapters or re-edits of chapters on my novel - I achieved this and have only got about 5/6 chapters to finish, need to crack on with it though and get some volunteer readers for some feedback on my first draft!

Other Targets 

• Run 2021 KM or 1256 miles in 2021 - this is 256 more that last year about an extra KM or 5 - 6 mins per day. - Not quite, I achieved 976.3 miles as I fell off pace about halfway through the year and also have not been out of the house much since picking up a heavy cold on Christmas day. I did manage to cover a total of 1297 miles including a tiny bit of cycling, and the rest was running, walking and skiing, so I think I'll take that as a win.
• Ride at least 122.2 hours in 2021 (2 hours and 21 minutes every week on average) to help with the below target - covid permitting! - I only managed...3 hours and 27 minutes including some time on zwift, this wasn't the year I did much cycling at all.
• Complete half ironman triathlon - Sundowner - Didn't get anywhere with this!
• Donate my hair to Little Princess Trust in celebration of getting vaccinated (fingers crossed!) - Achieved - donated 16 inches in July after nearly 2 years with no haircuts!

Other things that I achieved that I didn't plan or expect:

• New Job - After nearly 14 years at one company that I really enjoyed working for and had some great colleagues, I ended up in a situation where I was forced to resign with nothing to go to. It was probably one of the bravest things I've had to do as work has always been a constant and a safety blanket for me, I'm really pleased that I managed to find a new role with a great company and new manager who were understanding to allow me to have a couple of months out inbetween and I've made a good start to a new challenge of opening their Leeds office in December.
• Supporting my family through some of the biggest challenges that we have faced. 
• Getting back to face to face guiding in November, it was so rewarding to finally be back in person with guides.
• My most viral ever LinkedIn post...over 111000 views and 1433 reactions - lots of debate that has given me inspiration for a new blog post about how people are predisposed to recruit to their own biases around length of time in a role, when actually it should be shaped around what skills and experiences are needed by the role to be recruited.