Is running in your mental health toolkit?
For Enter Shikari singer Rou Reynolds, it's an essential part, so he's running the London Marathon to help raise money for mental health. Also: how slow is too slow??
The chart-topping rock star running a marathon for mental health
Enter Shikari is a British rock band. I first saw them perform live over 20 years ago (!!) with a couple dozen others, but now they play their eccentric, bombastic, electronics-infused bangers to tens of thousands of people at a time, and their seventh album, A Kiss for the Whole World entered the UK Albums Charts at No.1 in April 2023.
Their singer, Rou Reynolds is running his first marathon in April for UK charity, the Mental Health Foundation.
“My brother and I would watch the London Marathon together on TV, and it always had the element of prestige. It’s almost quite magical.”
“I’ve spoken to a lot of people where the weight of emotion in the air from all these people running for all these very personal causes.”
The 2024 London Marathon raised almost $100 million, which is the largest amount of money ever raised in a single day for charity.
Running has been in Rou’s life since school, when he realized he’d found a sport that he was quite good at. Since then he’s always used running for fitness, but the last decade has seen his emphasis shift more towards health.
“2015 was my big year of realization when everything went wrong. I didn’t sleep for a week, which was fascinating… and terrifying.”
“I tried to get a hold of things far too late. I was ignorant of a lot of mental health. I just thought I had my own idiosyncratic problems that I had to deal with, and didn’t really speak about it – even to myself. Generalized anxiety disorder has always been my problem.”
“I’ve had different types of therapy and I’ve assembled a toolbox of self-care. Running was one of the tools I already had, and from then onwards I kept up my small runs, even if it was just 3km.”
Some people say that running is their therapy, but thinking about it as one tool to be used for mental health is the best way to consider it. I don’t separate mental and physical health. I think they are inextricably linked, and equally important for me to live a full life.
If you need it, get a real life therapist and talk to them. They’ll help you build out a range of coping mechanisms, some of which might already be in your life. This interview with Allie Bailey touches upon many of those themes, if you’re interested in learning more.
The most common answer I hear about what part of running sucks the most is getting out of the door, but Rou always tries to remember how he benefits from a run.
“Something my dad always used to say is that running is great for clearing your head. That’s cute because that’s about as self-conscious as someone from that generation can be about mental health, but that stayed with me because it’s true. My headspace will usually be better after a run, even if I didn’t really want to.”
The mental benefits of running are more and more apparent every day, and Rou is really keen to share that with his fans, who might struggle with their mental health in the same way that he did. He wants them to be able to build their toolkits earlier in their lives than he did, though. A longtime climate campaigner, Rou thinks assessing mental health is essential for the world we live in today.
“Having something like running — that reminds you that you’re stronger than you think you are — is really important in today’s world, because we’re so bludgeoned by crises, and you look at the trajectory of humanity, and it’s honestly terrifying.”
“The first hurdle is finding your natural motivation. For me, I want to live a long and healthy life. It’s a very rational thing, and that’s not going to appeal to everyone.”
“Sometimes you just have to try a new activity to know that it makes you feel good, and to know you can do this. You don’t need all the fancy new kit. Just go out in some comfy clothes and trainers, and run around your block. Maybe you’ll get that sense of achievement straight away. Maybe it’ll come when you run around the block twice.”
Despite running for over two decades, Rou tells me that a marathon is “not something that he’s always wanted to do.”
He tells me how the motivation and energy that he gets from upping his distance has surprised him, and that he’s now interested in seeing how his body and mind respond to a distance that he describes as “ridiculous.”
Rou laughs when I tell him this is quintessential rock star behavior.
“It’s the classic thing of what doesn’t kill you should make you stronger.”
Rou Reynolds of Enter Shikari will be running the 2025 London Marathon for UK charity, the Mental Health Foundation.
Donation link [JustGiving]
Rou Reynolds [IG]
Running Sucks when… you think you’re too slow
“I’m too slow.”
“I don’t want to slow you down.”
It’s something I hear so frequently from people who are thinking about joining my run club.
When I set the group up at the end of 2023, my focus was on getting new runners running, maybe for the first time. Seasoned runners are comfortable enough in their abilities to not need any help.
People ask me what pace we run at, and I always tell them that 1) I’ll run with them and 2) that the average 5km time is 30-40 minutes. That’s 50% of people running faster that 10-13 min/mile, or 6-8 min/km, but also 50% of people running a 5k slower than that.
I run an 8-min mile (5-min km) when I run alone, but happily run a 12-13-min mile (7-8-min km) with friends. When they tell me I can go on ahead, I explain that I’m happy doing my zone 2 training with them. I’m happy chatting. Running can be fun, after all.
We regularly had half a dozen in my pack. The marathoners raced off, often busting red lights to get away at their comfortable pace. Slowly, but surely, that pack at the back – my pack – got smaller and smaller.
I know that in some instances, there’s nothing I can say to help that person’s insecurities recede enough for them to join a group run, but it still bothers me.
I know there are plenty of coaches and pros reading this, so I’d love to know how you would encourage someone who thinks they’re too slow or would be a burden to run with.
Last week on Running Sucks
I spoke to Bethan Taylor-Swaine AKA The Feminist Sports Sociologist late last year about her work shining a light on the issues facing women in the world of ultrarunning. Many of us want more research done in the world of ultrarunning and the feminist lens that Bethan uses in her PhD is vital, in my opinion.
None are new problems at all, but the problems aren’t solved yet, despite the incredible headline-grabbing feats of some women. Highlighting the people trying to provide solutions really helps.
It can invigorate people, and return those purposeful thoughts to the fronts of their minds. It’s why we have months of the year dedicated to marginalized sectors of society. The work continues.
It’s my birthday week
I’m turning 42, so it’s $42 a year FOREVER if you upgrade this week. Even when I turn 43. It’s a good URL. What do you get?
Running Sucks sticker pack — you get those stickers above PLUS MORE
You can enter to win a $100 Janji gift card every single week
A profile of a runner who I believe is making the world great
This weekly roundup newsletter with some musings on running
The big prize of supporting my independent journalism
Discounts on all merch and events
Maybe I’ll start doing video chats? What do you reckon? You can make requests. Why not?
Click here to make my birthday the best one I’ll have this year!
Last year on Running Sucks
A year ago I wrote about Nik Toocheck, who ran a marathon in every state in the USA at just 14 years old. It was one of those stories about amazing people in the running world that I absolutely loved to write.
Running Sucks Haiku of the Week
Forgot to get up…
I didn’t set my alarm??
No, I slept through it.
I had best laid plans to go for a run this morning, but woke up and panicked when I looked at the clock. My phone informed me that I’d missed an alarm. Ah well. I have a gym session planned for this afternoon.
You can look forward to me musing on the very contemporaneous topic of the past, present, and future of running shoes on Thursday. The only essential part of a runner’s wardrobe…
Thanks for reading
- Raz
Housekeeping
SUPPORT - Upgrade your subscription for just $1 a week to support my journalism. If you read my work every week consider it.
WIN - You can win a $100 Janji gift card every single week of 2025 if you upgrade your membership. This is just me saying thank you. Congratulations to Sean for winning this week.
MERCH - Buy the very last of the Running Sucks x Fractel hats, a special Glendale t-shirt, or a sticker pack and I’ll donate 100% of profits to Pasadena Humane, who have taken in hundreds of animals displaced by the fires. If you’ve received some free stickers, I look fwd to the photos!
At my wife’s running club, which I help at, we try and flip the situation.
Everyone runs at the pace of the ‘fun bus’ at the back and shooting ahead is stigmatised - if you have to do that, you must regroup.
It possibly means we get less ‘speedy’ runners coming along, but then again that’s not who the group is for!
Hope you had a good birthday!
It is certainly in the tool kit but it isn't the only tool.
What I have found out through running is that I am more capable of talking about my mental health (struggles and all) because I have learned I can do hard things.
Connecting with people, like yourself, allows for the free flow of a conversation in which there is a trust built based on going through those hard times together.
This brings out emotions that in the past, would have been stuffed down and not allowed to see the light of day.
Oh....and Happy Birthday!