words by Sabrina Pace-Humphreys
When I made the decision to shuffle my first ever mile in 2009 it wasn’t with the intention of becoming an ultramarathon runner. Back then I had no idea what an ultramarathon even was.
In my wildest dreams I could never have imagined that slow shuffle, still the hardest mile of my life, would one day lead to running 268 miles along Britain’s oldest national trail, the Pennine Way, or travelling 250 kilometres across the Sahara Desert carrying everything I owned in a race called the Marathon des Sables.
In 2009 I was simply a mum of four existing in the dark recess of postnatal depression, trying my best to survive each day. I was exhausted, highly anxious and felt buried under a mental and physical weight I was too unwell to name. That was until my 12 week post labour check when my GP named it for me. The woman I am now, the one who thrives in wild landscapes, felt like a pipe dream.
When that female GP suggested that, alongside medication and therapy, I try a jog, I remember laughing out loud. I had never run before. I didn’t know anyone who ran and, at the time, I was about 32 kilos overweight. Even the thought of stepping outside made my anxiety spike. Shame, about myself physically and mentally, ate me up.
It took days for me to do what she said. Days to quieten the devil on my shoulder and build the courage to leave the house. When I finally did, I found a quiet place where no one would see me, the canal towpath. I put one foot in front of the other and shuffled my wobbly post-baby body through a mile.
And my god, it hurt. Every part of my body hurt. But there was one thing that hurt a little less: my mind. The dark thoughts that flooded my head minute after minute eased their grip during that shuffle. I didn’t have a single thought about my value or my place on earth. All I could focus on was breathing, moving forward, being present. That tiny pocket of mental relief was enough to make me try again a few days later, once I could walk properly again.
I didn’t know it then, but the moment my feet touched the ground on that first shuffle was the moment my life began to change. A glimmer of hope seeped in. A flicker of pride for doing something hard. In my book Start Where You Are: The Beginner’s 5K Running Guide for Women I describe it as something taking hold of me like medicine, like a drug. And I became a willing addict, desperate to feel that sense of release again. I practised running in the same way others practise yoga or meditation. My journey was slow, at times painful, but I was consistent. Each run trained my mind as much as my body.
Running drove a stake into the landscape of mental pain I was experiencing at exactly the moment I needed a lifeline. Postnatal depression had stripped away my confidence and left me feeling disconnected from my own body. But running gave me tiny wins that rebuilt me piece by piece. It was never about pace or distance. It was about discovering, through moving my body in my own way, that I was capable of more than I allowed myself to believe.
In those early months I ran alone. But loneliness brought clarity. I realised I wanted to run toward something rather than away from it. So I set a goal to run 5K. To me that was, and still is, a monumental distance for a beginner.
When I looked around, either in my town or in the media, the landscape was filled with lithe runners in vests, long legs flying as they raced each other. None of them looked like me. Representation matters, and for so long I had been conditioned not to see myself as a runner. But finishing my first 5K changed that. Once I crossed that line, I couldn’t unsee what was reflected back at me. I was a runner. I belonged. I claimed it.
To me, resilience isn’t forged through perfection. It is built through repetition and curiosity. When I began coaching women in 2016, and eventually launched my women’s running community Stroud Mums on the Run, I recognised in those women the same fear I used to hold. The fear of being too slow, too big, too anxious or simply too different. I had been that woman. I knew exactly how heavy those doubts could be.
Guiding other women through their first miles became a full circle moment. Women would turn up terrified, but after a few weeks something powerful happened. They started to believe in themselves the way I had once learned to. Every week, every step, they began to build resilience too.
Resilience isn’t a magic trait. It is a muscle. Running taught me, and can teach you, how to strengthen it.
Running taught me that discomfort is not a sign to stop but sometimes a sign of growth. It taught me that small steps taken consistently can become life changing. It taught me that being part of a running community, whether in person or online, is not just supportive but transformative. And perhaps most importantly, it taught me that I am allowed to take up space. In running. In the world. In my own life.
Adventuring the world through running has taken me across deserts, through snowstorms and along ridgelines where the wind threatened to lift me from the earth. It has broken me open and built me back stronger. But none of those extreme moments compare to the day I first shuffled through a mile with tears in my eyes and hope in my chest.
I say that running changed my life, but what it really did was help me reclaim it. It gave, and still gives, me the space to breathe when everything feels too tight. It teaches me to trust myself and has given me a new identity built not on survival but on strength.
If you are reading this during a tough season of your life, I want you to know: resilience isn’t something you are born with. It is something you can create.
Start where you are. Move gently. Move slowly. But move. Your finish line might be a mile away or it might be a hundred. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you take that first step. And then another. And little by little you may discover what I discovered on that late summer day in 2009.
You are stronger than you know.
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