England Athletics has been celebrating Mental Health Awareness Week (12 – 18 May 2025) with an emphasis on the practical support provided by its ever-expanding national Run Together network – click here to find your nearest Run Together running group.

There are almost 500 #RunAndTalk athletics clubs and running groups registered with England Athletics, over 1,400 Mental Health Champions, and a dozen Mental Health Ambassadors, in a programme that runs in conjunction with mental health charity Mind.

In a circular this week, England Athletics said: "As sports, athletics and running not only have the power to support you physically, but can have great mental benefits. A YouGov survey into the positive impact of exercise showed that adults need to exercise for 9 minutes and 44 seconds to start to experience positive endorphins – the runner's high is definitely a real thing!"

So, in around the time it takes a good runner to cover 3000m, you can start to fire up the body's natural 'feel-good' chemicals, promoting a sense of calm, relaxation, even euphoria – wonderful therapy for managing stress and anxiety. How many times have you started a run with various worries and concerns and ended by forgetting what the problems were – that's the runner's high in action, right there.

Some runners take things a bit further than the 10-minute minimum. Double Paralympic champion Richard Whitehead MBE, for example. Richard (48) has set world records on the track and the road, but is best known for gold medals in the 200m at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Now he is closing in on his target of completing 100 marathons at the New York Marathon in November!

Richard's first marathon was New York in 2004. The double above-the-knee amputee, with the unmistakable running style, only took up sprinting because the marathon was not an option at the Paralympics for his T42 classification. In support of Mental Health Awareness Week, Richard has shared his battles and calls for more work in this space in an England Athletics blog and podcast here...

To learn more about England Athletics' support for Mental Health Awareness Week, click here.

Photo courtesy of Richard Whitehead MBE