From Runners World for New Balance

I believe I had depression in middle school, although I didn’t have a name for it at the time. Coming from a religious upbringing, mental illness was often seen as a lack of faith in God, not a medical issue. I was encouraged to simply “get over it.”

I grew up in a homogeneously white and conservative rural area in the South. I was the only person of color in my classes, and kids would make fun of the way I talked, my hair, the color of my skin, and my clothes. Looking in the mirror terrified me because of how ugly I felt. I had difficulty turning in school assignments, staying focused, and communicating my feelings to others. I can’t really explain how I made it through those dark years. All I know is that my experiences catalyzed me to pursue a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, with a main focus on assessing and treating Black families and children.

I first started running in high school, but that didn’t last. On the first day of practice, the coach asked us to split ourselves into sprinters and distance runners. All the other Black kids joined the sprinting group, so I did too. Little did I know that I wasn’t very fast. I always had more in the tank after 100, 200, and 400 meter runs, but it didn’t feel like an option at that time to join the distance runners, so I quit.

Another significant depressive episode came in college, but managing it as an adult was easier because I had some agency and autonomy. Around that time, I began connecting more with my mind, spirit, and body through various fitness classes and walks.

Then in 2021, I moved to New York City where running is very prevalent. People were jogging everywhere! Inspired, I bought a pair of Brooks and took to the streets. The first few runs were hard because I didn’t have the fitness. I made all the beginner mistakes of running too fast and failing to hydrate. But I persevered because the movement offered me comfort and a chance to ground myself. Over time, I made my way up to running marathons, but I still remember the day I ran my first two miles without stopping. Every running milestone will forever have a special place in my heart.

As a psychologist in training, I spend most of my day taking in other people’s pain and trauma. As a Black runner, witnessing the events of 2020 and onward related to anti-Black racism and police violence, it’s been hard to stomach all of the pain in my community. When it comes to my mental health, I don't know where I’d be without running—not because I’m running from something, but because with every stride, I run toward my true self. Running is my release. It’s cathartic, spiritual, and freeing in a country where my freedom feels limited.

Running has always been a way to access a clearer mind, stay in touch with my body, and connect with my family. Before the death of my son, running had been an oasis of familiarity to turn to. After he passed, it gained a deeper meaning.

I started running in 1979. I had just moved from New York City, where basketball was my source of exercise, to Los Angeles, where I didn’t find comparable options. So I purchased running shoes, found a place half a mile from my apartment, and tried to run to the spot and back. I enjoyed it, so I started gradually increasing my mileage, and when someone taunted me by saying I couldn’t possibly run a marathon, I committed to extending my runs to that distance just to prove the person wrong.

Once I settled down, running became a link to my family. I pushed both my son and later my daughter in a running stroller from an early age, which created a beautiful connection between us. My son, Hunter, was 4 years old when I pushed him through the L.A. Marathon. We traveled to races together often, and as he outgrew his stroller, he ran a few of them with me. Later in life, while he was struggling with addiction, running kept us connected. Those were very joyful moments.

He called me one day, while he was incarcerated, asking about the “race up the mountain” I had done. He said he was going to get out of jail, get clean, and run it with me. And he did! We ran the 2015 Mt. Baldy Run-to-the-Top together, and it was he who pulled me all the way up. Watching his joy at the top and realizing how we had somewhat closed the father-son loop was a striking experience.

About six months after that race, Hunter died of fentanyl overdose. He and his friend slept in the friend’s car and Hunter never woke up.

A week after Hunter’s death, I ran the L.A. Charity Half Marathon to process my grief, but also to fundraise for a nonprofit called Reading to Kids. Running for charity gave my running life new meaning, something to focus on. I have since started working for Habitat for Humanity and fundraising in Hunter’s name. I always race in a shirt with his name on it, and when spectators call out his name, it feels like he is running with me. Some days it’s the little boy who enjoyed our shared adventures; other days the young man whose life was a constant battle against his demons. It’s when I feel in touch with him the most.

Running and racing have been a connective tissue in my life. I’ve done 28 marathons, and though I tried to retire from the 26.2 distance eight marathons ago, I keep coming back to it. With age, race times are not the same, but the training and discipline are. I don’t run to fight off aging, I run to celebrate the journey. As long as I can, I will keep looking for my next running goal—taking Hunter’s spirit along with me in my heart.

I’ve always had anxiety—although it wasn’t until two years ago that I got the official diagnosis— and running has always helped me feel better.

I had been running for about three years when, at 24, I became a parent. Soon after my son was born, I realized I was struggling. Both postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression hit me hard. I had a difficult time connecting with my baby the way I thought I was supposed to and it would send me into an anxiety-filled whirlwind of crying and hyperventilating. I was surrounded by people but felt completely alone. I couldn’t sleep or even just be in my room on my own.

Knowing that running always helped quiet my brain down, I got back into a consistent routine. When I would find myself in the throes of an anxiety attack, going for a run-walk would help me focus on my breathing and get my heart rate back on track. It provided a structure and a way to cope.

Things got exacerbated when, at the age of 30, I went on a business trip and realized what a trigger being alone was. I have always had trouble sleeping on my own, but I never had to face the anxiety because I had gone from sharing a room with my sister to living with my husband. During that trip, I went for runs after work to try to settle my mind and my body, but at that point, I knew I had to seek professional help.

While running always did and continues to help me stay stable, I also needed therapy and a treatment plan. I now pair medication and physical activity to treat my anxiety and have never felt better.

There have been times when I’ve been fixated on a race or a PB and it’s caused more anxiety than not—that’s when I know I need to take a step back. But I always come back to running. It’s my life’s constant. It’s a me-time that makes me a better mom, a better partner, and all-around a happier person.

I don’t know where I would be without running today. It has helped me keep going and push through when I wanted to give up on life.

Growing up, my dad was the runner in our family, lacing up at 5:30 in the morning and taking to the trail or the streets. He used to tell stories about his cross country days and the Bloomsday 12K race in Spokane, Washington, he would run every year. My hope was to, one day, run it with him.

My parents’ marriage was a complicated one, with constant arguing and reuniting. Through it all, I had my sister, with whom I’ve always been close. But since she was older, by the time I got to high school, I was on my own. That was also the time when I came out, and I felt like I didn’t have anyone to lean on.

Dad learned I was gay through someone at church. During his drunk episodes, he would start calling me his “son” and give me advice about women. The space between us grew dauntingly large. Between my parents fighting and my loneliness, things grew dark for me. Thoughts of suicide were frequent and all-consuming.

My sister turned toward running first, training for the Portland Marathon. She reflected on her runs feeling very meditative, the time spent under the sky helping her mental state. The seed was planted.

One night, when dark thoughts started to creep in, I took off running in hopes of finding relief. Miles later, I returned hungry, thirsty, and with blisters, but for the first time in a long time, I felt better.

I wanted more of that feeling, so I decided to train for the same marathon my sister did two years earlier. I followed my training plan religiously. The training block challenged me to work through my thoughts and issues I didn’t talk about. I felt lighter—I wasn’t holding everything in anymore, I released it by running the streets of Seattle.

Yearning for the structure of a training plan, I ran a marathon every year for a few years, up until I became a police officer. I always had an interest in joining the military, wanting to serve my community and help people. But I was gay. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was real and I didn’t want to hide who I was, so, in the end, I joined law enforcement. Seeing what a police officer gets to see on the job was difficult, and to deal with it, I swapped running for drinking, eventually losing touch with the sport altogether. At one point, the drinking became too frequent, offering very little relief in return, and so to save myself, I left law enforcement.

Knowing running helped me through the darkness before, I returned to it. I made a rule for myself: I wouldn’t drink while I was training. Eventually, interest in drinking died off, and running prevailed.

Running has been the greatest coping tool my dad—and later my sister—could have portrayed for me. I’m now back to running a marathon each year, and I’m the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been. I even introduced my spouse to running. I am not a ghost anymore—I live, breathe, and run. And I’m nowhere near done—there are so many more miles to go!

In October 2017, I was an elite wrestler in peak shape when I started experiencing headaches, nausea, and vomiting. I was diagnosed with a brain hemorrhage, and later, a life-threatening AV malformation with a cavernous tumor in my frontal lobe, which led to a series of surgeries and a month in an ICU.

I went from being an athlete to becoming bedridden and unable to control my bladder. With daily injections into my stomach and the use of a catheter and a suppository, my feelings ranged from embarrassment to devastation, ultimately leading to depression. For weeks after the surgeries, any attempt to walk resulted in falling, making me feel completely helpless and feeding into concerns about whether I’d ever be able to move on my own again. I felt defeated, not just as a physical being but also mentally.

But I knew I had to get better, if not for myself, then for my wife and my children. I understood that getting back to doing any sport would be a journey of epic proportions, requiring all the patience I could find in me. First, I had to do months of rehabilitation to regain movement in my body to start walking again. But for my mental health, I needed a much bigger goal to focus on. That goal ended up being running the 2022 Surf City Half Marathon in Huntington Beach, California.

I knew that as long as I put effort into it, I would slowly but surely get better at running. Little by little, I saw my fitness return, which positively impacted my mental health and, in turn, kept me going. Before my brain surgeries, I had viewed running as a tool to lose weight to maintain my weight class for wrestling tournaments. But during that time, running became so much more than that. My priorities changed, I started to do it because I wanted to be healthier, safer, and have longevity in sports.

Crossing the finish line of my first half marathon felt amazing, helping me regain confidence in my abilities and leaving me wanting more of that feeling. Running is something I no longer take for granted. I’m thankful that my body allows me to move. My mantra is stay strong, and you’ll be good to go!

When my family was up against extreme difficulties during the pandemic, the pounding of pavement mirrored the resilience I needed to discover within myself.

I was always active in one way or another, starting with short-distance running in middle school, but it wasn’t until about two years ago when, at 43, I started to call myself a runner. In my head, runners looked a certain way, were always at the front of the pack, and were the ones whose names would be called at the finish line. I was none of these. I get frustrated when running stores don’t carry enough diverse clothing because when you can’t find the gear you want, you can’t move the way you want. I had a hard time feeling like I belonged in the sport.

But things changed during the pandemic when everybody was losing their minds, and I was trying my best not to lose mine while being confined to my house. I was working on a very intense project at work, and we were going through issues at home. Marriages get hard, raising kids gets hard, life can just get very hard, and everything started to crumble during the pandemic. My anxiety and depression got pretty deep at one point, amplified by the heartbreaking losses of family members. I was left feeling very alone.

That’s when, out of sheer desperation, I committed to running more. I needed something to focus on outside of what was happening at home and work, so I figured, if I were to ever train for a marathon, it was going to be that year. I searched for a community to keep me accountable and motivated, and I came across Kelly Roberts’s Badass Lady Gang. That’s when I found a group that made me feel comfortable and like I belonged. It made all the difference.

During the marathon training block, running had transformed from a physical activity to an emotional one, a space where I could find strength. I hadn’t had the healthiest relationship with the sport in the past: I had counted the calories I had burned instead of the distance or time I had run, working toward a margarita or a dessert. This time around, I wasn’t moving to earn my food—I moved because it helped my mind. With heightened depression and anxiety at odds with each other, my brain often jumped from this to that, becoming all jumbled up. When everything felt overwhelming to the point I couldn’t deal with it anymore, running helped settle my mind. After a run, I felt like the pieces fell into place a little better.

Running has done wonders for me and I wanted others to experience the same. In Huntsville, Alabama, where I live, we have a women’s running group called Ta Ta Tuesday and I volunteer to pace a run-walking group. If you find yourself on the struggle bus on any given day, you never run alone. Nobody’s left behind. I don’t care if we walk the whole time, or if we do a half mile around the track and are done—we get out there and that’s what matters. This is my tribe and I want everyone to feel like they belong.

I now know when I start getting foggy during the day, I’m not as clear-headed, and I’m short on patience, running allows me that emotional recovery space. Without running, my run buddies, and the people in my life, the last two years would have had a different outcome. During times when you’re at the very bottom of your cup, running refills it just a little bit, helping you get through another day.

Lisa Watkins trained with Runner’s World for the 2024 Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Miler.

Addiction, anxiety, and depression have been part of my life for more than 15 years. In my early 20s, I dealt with a lot of it by drinking, smoking, and partying. It took the unexpected death of my best friend to realize that something needed to change.

I met Atticus in my late teen years, and because we shared many interests, from playing music to hiking, we quickly became inseparable. Some of my fondest memories are from the times we spent camping at the Joshua Tree National Park in California together.

By late 2016, Atticus was diagnosed with brain cancer for the second time. I had watched his body slowly betray him; once an active lover of the outdoors, he started to require the use of a wheelchair, and in the last few weeks of his life became bedridden. He passed away in January of 2018.

I had a tough time coping with the depth of my grief and this immense loss in my life. My substance use increased and started to get out of hand quickly.

Call it a fortunate turn of events: Later the same year I was tasked with walking part of the Wharf to Wharf 6 miler in California alongside my wife’s father. My wife’s family runs the race every July, and as a self-proclaimed hater of running, I would come along to cheer for them by the finish line. But the 2018 race was just a month after my father-in-law’s heart surgery, and to ensure the inspiring, stubborn man didn’t actually run it while recovering, I was to stay by his side.

Dressed in sneakers and jean shorts, little did I know how much fun I’d have on the course: Seeing people cheer on the sidewalks and witnessing runners around me getting so much joy out of simply moving their bodies, I wanted to be part of it. Truly part of it. I decided there and then to start training and actually run the race with my family the following year.

Over the next few months, I stopped smoking and focused on increasing my mileage. For the first time in a long time, I was working toward a goal, enjoying the process, feeling like I had a purpose. Though I ran a few shorter races throughout the year to keep myself on track, the peak was running the 2019 Wharf to Wharf race.

There was no stopping me at 6 miles. I ran the 2020 L.A. Marathon, and after that, I applied for the 2022 New York City Marathon, fundraising for the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. I raised $10,700 for brain cancer research, all in Atticus’s name. If he were still here, I know he’d be pushing me to do as much with my body as I can while it still works.

Running has supported my mental health by giving me the outlet I needed to be more present, grounded, and connected with my physical self. It’s a way I honor the lives of those no longer with us. Being in my body helps me understand and respect that tomorrow isn’t promised for any of us.

Growing up in a chaotic home with substance use and untreated mental health issues, I’ve always struggled with anxiety. Ever since childhood, running helped me feel calmer.

In middle school, my distance was 1600 meters. I did well, but eventually developed an eating disorder, which forced me out of running. This was back in the 90s when the belief was that with a diagnosis like mine, you don’t return to the sport.

It took years, but thankfully, I did return, after being fully recovered for some time. I moved to San Diego for graduate school in 2008, the most active place I’ve lived, with beautiful running weather year-round. I was craving just being outside with everyone else. I’m autistic, and being on the spectrum can make social interactions difficult, so I figured joining a running group would give me something in common with others. I ended up joining the San Diego Track Club—and I’m so glad I did.

In 2009, I ran my first marathon on a whim. My now-husband whom I’d been dating for a few short months back then was training for the San Diego Marathon and made a remark that I couldn’t possibly race it—I registered the day before to prove him wrong. Afterward, he swore he’d never run a marathon again, but I loved the experience. Three years later, I qualified for Boston in the same race.

I was supposed to run the 2013 Boston Marathon, the year the bombing happened. But I didn’t: Leading up to it, I found out I was pregnant. Although my doctor gave me the go-ahead, I was scared, expecting for the first time—I was consenting to run 26.2 miles, but my baby wasn’t.

After I became a mom, running has shifted to something I’d do recreationally, especially to deal with my work as an eating disorder therapist. I’m empathetic, and I hold space for my client’s trauma, feelings, and emotions. So I run to calm my nervous system. Breathing in itself is very meditative, which is one of the reasons I do yoga and practice mindfulness. But I’ve learned that running can do the same for me: I get the same benefits of being present in my body and aware of my surroundings.

Stemming from my own experience growing up, I offer virtual groups for compulsive exercisers, where we untangle the complicated relationship they have with exercise and determine ways for them to return to it, if it’s healthy, or find new ways to enjoy movement. As a therapist, I see a lot of need for education on eating disorders. There are a lot of messages that if you change the way you look externally, you’ll feel better internally, and it's not that simple. I want to shine a little light on these issues and offer support where I can.

Jennifer Beasley trained with Runner’s World for the 2024 Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Miler.