Going Together, Coming Together
*Please note. This blog contains references to mental health crisis and suicide.
“Dear Running, Thank you for always clearing my head, grounding my soul, healing my heart and lifting my spirit.” @RunningMoms gets the credit for this quote, but few who run have not, at least at some point in time, felt this kind of gratitude. Maybe swimming or cycling is your thing, or serious weightlifting or a fierce walk. Movement is medicine for all the parts of us that are woven into what allows us flourish. May is Mental Health Awareness month, but anyone who is paying attention is already aware that our mental health lives alongside our physical health, and the two are inextricably linked together. We know that exercise impacts our mental health in obvious and subtle ways and for many people, there is mental health magic in their running shoes.
We get a warm shower of neurochemicals when we are in motion: endorphins that act as natural mood elevators and pain relievers, neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine whose enhanced availability during exercise help regulate mood, gifting us with the famous “runner’s high”. Movement is the very best stress reducer, lowering levels of cortisol and adrenaline, chemicals that keep our nervous systems on high alert, even when there is no tiger to run from. Exercise reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression while elevating our confidence and self-esteem. Exercise improves our sleep, which is essential for good mental and physical health.
Going for a run or walk or swim, or a ride on a regular basis improves our cognitive health, which includes clearer, sharper thinking, a reduced risk of cognitive decline and better concentration and attention, two things that are affected by poor mental health. When we play pickleball or race together, we get social support. We are above all else, social animals, and any opportunity for positive social engagement is life-affirming. We literally get sick without it. Most of all, perhaps, we learn that we can do hard things. We learn to be resilient.
Our only May race focuses on mental health and suicide prevention. The two miles or five miles we’ll run opens our running or walking to the idea of movement as medicine and opens our hearts to an embrace of the idea of “accompaniment,” what it means to give and receive support. The Tyler Vanderheiden Memorial Run is also the deep commitment of a family opening up their story to us. It is the story of Tyler, an ordinary young man from an ordinary family holding extraordinary pain. By telling Tyler’s story, his family opens up to everyone who is struggling or knows someone who is struggling by offering the possibility of hope. It is brave to share your anguish, especially when someone you cannot live without takes their own life. It is also healing to tell your story. It gives a kind of permission to talk about mental health and suicide, helping to reduce the stigma associated with both. We need a brighter light and better math when it comes to the complexity of whole human health.
A memorial run is always tender. It is always a terrible and beautiful day, and I hold them as sacred. Tyler’s race offers the hope of two kinds of medicine by supporting the Nebraska Game and Parks Foundation. Movement as medicine. Nature as medicine. There is science and lived experience for both. You see, Tyler loved to be outdoors. You should know that about him. He was at home there, in the wild, with the flora and fauna that make Nebraska our beautiful home. Tyler’s race has raised over $37,000 to improve open spaces and trails at Nebraska State Parks for the benefit of everyone who visits. This year’s selected improvement site speaks to the universal nature of this race, to its reach across the state and across the country as it reaches from one side of a river to the other. Proceeds will go toward a refurbishing of the bridge over the Platte River on the trail connecting Fort Kearney State Park and the trail system in Kearney. Thousands of people from all over the world visit this precious place to view the migrating cranes and other wild birds, to breathe in the natural beauty of the Platte River, the waterway that gave us our name.
Tyler’s race is about “going together.” Physical health and mental health go together. Holding hands, holding space, holding time to walk or run together, giving our full attention to the way this moving together, this “collective effervescence” imbues our miles with a fuller meaning and purpose is at the heart of this race. Tyler’s race is about coming together. For years, athletes from all 50 states (and all 93 Nebraska counties in 2024) have come together with a single voice that acknowledges that life is hard, and running is hard, but when we run and when we do life together, the burden we carry becomes lighter. We are always better together. Tyler’s race created an opening for other races like the Hero’s March to also point to the value of exercise for both physical and mental health, closing the loop for the entire PRFS and its vision and values.
The Tyler Vanderheiden Memorial Run has been the largest Platte River Fitness Series event for the last two years. Its reach is big and broad because it speaks to something nearly universal in people. That something is our need for joy, even when our struggle in a race or in life is real. There is joy at the finish line, and the finish line is where a kind of hope is born. Sometimes, we hope we survive until we reach it. Sometimes, we hope to improve even more next time. Sometimes we hope we win a medal. Sometimes we hope the joy and relief of the finish line stays in our hearts for a very long while. Most of us hope we will run forever. We hope we can be a part of this community forever.
Tyler’s race reminds us that there is light inside what is dark, and by going together and coming together, we let a little light in for ourselves and for each other. It is so rewarding to think of t-shirts, such a simple and yet meaningful symbol of athletic accomplishment, from our local race appearing in so many places across the country and across our state! The Game and Parks Foundation commissions an artist each year to capture Tyler’s love of Nebraska’s natural beauty as this race captures the intention of its purpose. It is intention that is at our foundation as a community initiative and that foundation is our belief in the essentialness of whole human health. We cannot divide ourselves, physical and mental. Medicine is beginning to understand, healers and healthcare providers of all kinds are beginning to understand. We are whole beings.
I have spent my career trying to persuade people that they can do hard things. It is easier to talk only about physical health or physical fitness. Mental health is a hard place to go, but go we must if we, as a community, are to live into our values and the pillars that hold up the work of the Platte River Fitness Series, the values that create whole human health. We are in the flourishing business, together. It is amazing what an athlete can accomplish when they are surrounded by people who believe in them. They flourish, they are whole.