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MAN RUNS PR TRAIL TWICE TO PROMOTE MENTAL HEALTH
CHRISTOPHER SMITH christopher.smith@eap.on.ca
An Ottawa man ran from Orleans to Hawkesbury and back again over the weekend to raise money and awareness for mental health. Over the weekend of May 7, Samuel Brazeau ran the entire length of the Pres- cott-Russell Recreational Trail twice. The trail spans the entire region from Ottawa to Hawkesbury and was once part of a railway SPVUF UIBUDPOOFDUFE/FX:PSL$JUZXJUI Quebec City, but over the weekend it was a driving force of awareness and positive change. Brazeau ran the trail from Orleans to Hawkesbury and back again to raise awareness for mental health. Brazeau’s passion for mental health began six years ago, when he quit a long career in dirt-biking that began at the age of three. For 15 years, he trained and competed on the dirt-biking circuit, but it was only when he was gearing up to enter big leagues of adult competitions that he realized that he wasn’t happy. He’d been dealing with anxiety and depression for years at that point, the pressure of performing and reaching ever greater heights compounding, until he finally reached a breaking point. “I had to stop that because of mental health, because it was driving me to a point of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts,” Brazeau said. “It was after writing down a letter saying goodbye to my family, saying basically that I was going to take my
Samuel Brazeau s’est lancé le défi de courir deux fois le sentier récréatif de Prescott-Russell pour promouvoir la santé mentale. -photo fournie
own life that I realized at the end where I was at and how low I was. And it was that incident where I realized I needed to change, because there was a reason I was there. “This was a point in my life I had to make a decision to stop my dirt-biking career to find myself, to find why I am alive. That whole journey started by stopping and refocusing, and that’s where I slowly found triathalon. I found myself in that world of always pushing
my limits. I didn’t even think I was able to run five kilometers.” Brazeau says it’s not all about those large, debilitating problems though. Drawing attention to things like addiction and lacking DPOàEFODFJTKVTUBTJNQPSUBOUUPIJN8IFO he first came up with the idea of the run, he says it took him a month to commit to it as he’s not a professional runner and wasn’t sure he was up to the challenge, but he
finally decided he had to try because he was so scared of the prospect. #SB[FBVQBSUOFSFEXJUIUIF:PVUI4FSWJDFT #VSFBV :4# UPDPMMFDUEPOBUJPOTGSPNSFTJ - dents and promote his message. He posted live coverage of the run on Facebook and Ins- tagram, and raised $1,125.65 at the time of writing. Donations are still open at https:// ysbfoundation.akaraisin.com/ui/diy4ysb/p/ CoursepourlasanteThementalhealthrun
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