BELLA’S ADVICE FOR GETTING ON TRACK

CONSIDER A RUNNING APP I used the C25K (Couch to 5k) app to get started. It’s helpful for building your endurance and the easily achievable stages mean you can really see your progress.

lDOWNLOAD PODCASTS AND GOOD MUSIC PLAYLISTS. Sometimes I get bored without audio and knowing a programme is half an hour long or so is helpful when you are planning your route – it also means you are more likely to keep going!

lTHE HARDEST PART OF A RUN IS JUST GETTING OUT OF THE DOOR.

I can procrastinate for ages but eventually I make myself go by remembering that I’ve never regretted a run. Come up with a mantra that motivates you and it’ll be much easier to do it.

lGET A FRIEND TO COME WITH YOU or sign up to Parkrun (free weekly 5km timed runs; parkrun.ie) if you don’t think you can do it alone. I prefer to run solo but, occasionally, a run with a mate can be fun and makes the session go much faster. When starting out, you can hold each other accountable and make sure you encourage one another.

lDON’T WORRY ABOUT WHETHER YOU LOOK FOOLISH or that everyone is staring at you. You don’t and they’re not. This self-consciousness can really impact women especially, so you have to push through it quickly. Everyone is too busy staring at their phones to watch you run, I promise.

lBE PROUD OF YOURSELF. Make a note of your milestones – 1km, 5km. Don’t berate yourself for not doing a race if you don’t want to – if you run, you’re a runner and you’re doing something amazing. Make sure you acknowledge that. Especially on rainy, cold days.

llove of eating too much food. Even when, months later, Greg asked me out on a date, I wasn’t 100 per cent certain that it was a date – I was just enjoying meeting new people and breaking out of the safety net of my closest gang. But it was a date and it quickly became a lot more.

I wasn’t in any rush to find love, but when it came along I felt so confident in my decisions and happy with myself that the offer was an obvious one to grab. Nothing felt rushed; it just felt as though I was being swept along by something inevitable, which is a strange feeling for one so desperate to be in control.

For a long time, I didn’t think I’d get married again. I had come to prize my hard-won independence and didn’t want to regress or rely too heavily on another person to make me ‘normal’. My mental health always has to be my priority – perhaps that sounds selfish, but it means I’m then able to look after others as well. And I found out it was easy to be in this relationship and look after my mental health, too.

I began to view marriage differently. I saw it as a wonderful shared companionship for two people who are secure in themselves and can stand on their own two feet – so much so that I proposed over dinner one night back in February. We got married in September. I ran on the morning of our wedding, just to keep a promise to myself never to let it slide.

My biggest achievement is not marriage or love, it’s tackling my mental health problems and continuing the commitment I made to keep on top of them. I still go jogging six or seven times a week – Greg understands how important this mental and physical space is to me. He runs, too, and we’ll happily meet for breakfast when we’re both finished. That’s my kind of marriage.

Jog On: How Running Saved My Life by Bella Mackie is published by William Collins, price €18.20

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