I ran today

The forecast for this morning was wind, rain and a temperature of about 3c. Still I put on my running gear and headed out. Turns out it was only windy and cold. No rain. Phew. Tomorrows forecast looks to be the same but with rain. Darn.

There’s a ton of articles online about running is good for your mental health. Loads of personal stories. Tweets. Instagrams. Upbeat inspirational posters. Loads. The internet is not short of how running is good for your mental health.

Moving the body, boosting the mind.

Benefits of Running for Depression and Anxiety

Depression, anxiety, OCD – running helped us beat them. By a photographer no less.

Yet I’m sat here depressed.

I’ve never found running to be good for my mental health. I do love a good run. I love to be out in the rain when no-one else is. I love to be the crazy one defying the idea of what I should be doing now. Yet I still can be depressed 12 hours later.

I don’t know what’s good for my mental health. It’s far too complicated a problem for me to understand. I just have to take it day by day and not give up. I will run and swim and it will make no difference. Maybe I should accept that the two things are completely unrelated. I mean you never see articles saying how eating eggs in the morning stops you getting attacked by chickens at night. Maybe for me running is just running. Something I do and then I’m onto the next thing. There is no massive high that I ride through the day. I like that I’m defying my programming and doing it. But it doesn’t have some magical power to defend me from 12 hours worth of events that can lead to depression.

I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Maybe I should go for a run? Shake it off?