To say I’ve had a difficult and chaotic few years is a bit of an understatement. After struggling with my mental health and sexuality, then going through a painful break-up and losing my best friend – I had reached my breaking point last year.

I felt completely defeated and alone. I was ready to drop out of university and had few aspirations for my future. Then, out of nowhere, my life changed forever. I met and developed a strong friendship with the most remarkable, hilarious, confident, and endlessly supportive woman I’ve ever known. During my worst days she never once made me feel judged and could make me laugh for hours when I felt like everything was going wrong. Through our friendship I gained new confidence, I became less scared of what people thought about me, I started therapy, and I successfully finished the year at university. Despite all of the tears, especially this last year, I’ve had so many memories filled with utter joy.

As a result, over the last 12 months or so I have started feeling much better and have begun to make a conscientious effort to truly love and take care of myself. I’ve started to push myself out of my comfort zone as much as possible and re-learn forgotten hobbies of the past. Growing up I loved sport, having been a tennis player since my early primary school days, but with depression I often couldn’t find much motivation for anything, so exercise was one of the last things on my mind. My fitness has been virtually non-existent for a good while now so rebuilding it has been hard work, but it remains something I’m really dedicated to working on.

I recently started training for this year’s Great North Run with no prior running experience so trying new things I am almost certainly not prepared for is a pretty common thing for me to do. When I saw the This Girl Can Swim campaign Henley Swim were running it immediately stood out to me as an idea for my next ill prepared challenge. I applied assuming I wouldn’t win so when I received an email a couple of weeks later congratulating me on winning a place in the mile long swim I was delighted. Moments later the elation dissipated, and I was filled with dread realizing I wasn’t at all ready for such a task and was scared I’d not be able to finish and would just humiliate myself and let every in the team down.

Despite the fear and nerves I still feel about the big swim I’m really excited and honored to be given such a great opportunity. Starting training for the swim has been frankly exhausting, but every time I finish a session, I feel one step closer to reaching the finish line. I feel so much more motivated now to continue pushing myself to reach my fitness goals. My mental health already since starting training is exponentially better and I know I’m only going to get better as the weeks go by.

Is it going to be a difficult few months getting ready for the race? Absolutely. Is it going to be worth it though? Absolutely.