#REDJanuary Day 26

My whole life I believed that my body was wrong in some way and that exercise was a way of punishing my body for this wrongness. I've worked hard to overcome these feelings and this month I have been for a run every day, I've had fun, I'm happier, more relaxed, more motivated, more energetic & my friends and I have raised money for charity. I haven't thought about punishing my body once. But I've thought a lot about improving my mental health.

When I started this challenge, my instinct was not to worry about how far I was running or how fast; but intrigue got the better of me and I installed an app called Strava this morning to measure my run.

The app told me to "quantify my suffering" and get my "suffer score" whatever that is, and it properly annoyed me!

I didn't think I was suffering.

I actually thought I was doing something good for myself.

I think this language of pain and suffering is really damaging, and excludes a lot of people from feeling like exercise can be for them; I thought for a long time that if it wasn't painful I wasn't exercising right. So I either hurt myself or gave up. The whole "go hard or go home" mentality did not speak to me. It just makes me want to go home.

And while the app does lots of cool stuff, I still think that language matters.  Had Strava told me to quantify my success this morning I could have finished the run motivated and proud. But because it told me to quantify my suffering I  started to question myself: "have I ran enough?", "could I have been more out of breath?", "should my body be hurting?". It's the kind of questioning that in the past, for me, has lead to both over-excercising and giving up altogether.

So I'm going to continue with my version of exercise, it's one that gives me space to think, and a chance to listen to really good music; it's a version where I stop when I feel like I've had enough. No suffering required.

And just so you know, your body is awesome just as it is. It does not need to suffer or be punished. You have the right to move it, if and how and when you want.

Jog on Strava.

I know I will.


If you would like to sponsor me and my wonderful friends for running (not suffering) every day in January CLICK HERE