Event Coverage: The Blue Run Canberra

It’s 11am on a Saturday, nineteen degrees and cloudy, with winds that could just about knock you over. A miserable morning in the Nation’s capital.

Despite the bad weather, there are 708 young faces gathered at the National Carillon. Dressed all in blue, and smiling for the first-ever “Blue Run”, a 5km bridge-to-bridge fun run at Lake Burley Griffin. There are runners, walkers, cyclers, skaters and pooches alike, all banding together to combat mental illness.

The Blue Run is a combined effort between Soul Survivor and Beyond Blue, and is the final activity of the SoulConference for 2015, “SOULINTHEBUSH“. This event was created as an effort to raise money and awareness for mental health and support the work of beyondblue.

Soul Survivor NSW/ACT is a Christian youth organisation, which connects with rural and Indigenous communities, which are among the two groups with higher than average rates of suicide compared to the rest of the population.

The organiser for the Blue Run, Deb Stanley, said “It was amazing to see over 700 people – most of them young – come together to do something practical to care about mental health. It was a powerful moment to hear some of these young guys say that they understood a little more about mental health issues, and that they knew they weren’t alone and that they could talk to someone if they needed to.”

The hundreds of young faces line the footpath beside the lake, and make a sea of blue at the start line. “Uptown Funk” is blaring from the DJ Station, and the runners start the countdown to begin the race. As the horn sounds, the sea of blue passes, and reveals an array of elaborate costumes.

From bunnies to polar bears to blue tutus, this fun run has it all – even some of the dogs were dressed for the occasion!

The first runner crossed the finish line after an impressive 18 minutes, drenched in a blue sweat and wearing a wide smile. Not long after he arrived, many more of the runners began to cross the finish line and make their way to the “Blue Zone” for some post-run ‘blues’.

There is blue Jelly Baff, water bombs, and blue paint – and everyone is getting into it. I even got threatened with some Jelly Baff. Thankfully, my squeals of protest saved me.

After the sausage sizzle and a bit of time in the Blue Zone, the runners gathered in front of the DJ Booth to hear from the two speakers for the day – BeyondBlue ambassador Tristan Metcalfe, and speaker, author and National Youth Awards finalist, Rachael Stevens.

Rachael gave a short, but powerful speech. She briefly detailed her experience with depression and anorexia, which began at age 15. She told the audience that she was hospitalised after passing out at school, and until that point, she had not even realised that she was sick.

She read a small excerpt from her book, The Skeleton Diaries, and implored her audience to seek help, and not to be afraid to share their stories of struggle. She also encouraged her audience to listen to others’ stories of struggle, as mental illness is a community issue, not solely the issue of an individual.

Tristan then began his speech with a bone-chilling fact: every day, six Australians will lose their lives to suicide. Of those six Australians, five of them are men. Research conducted by Beyondblue suggests that the higher levels of suicide among men are a result of the perceived ’emasculation’ that is associated with talking about their feelings.

It is statistics like these, and the stigmas that are associated with mental illness, that Beyondblue and Soul Survivor are trying to change – and the BlueRun in Canberra was their first steps towards combatting it, in a fun and friendly way.