[gentle, serious instrumental]
- Angela Fitzgerald: Ever felt the need for a break?
- Miss Smedemac: It's quiet.
There's nobody here. [feet tapping forest floor]
I can just be out here by myself in nature.
- A chance to step away.
- Relena Ribbons: There's something about connecting with the earth
as I'm running over it that's pretty joyful.
- Regain your footing.
- Tommy Byrne: You feel free.
You feel relaxed.
You feel disconnected from, I would say,
the busyness of just all the things
in front of you every day.
- And realize that some things in life
are just much bigger than we initially thought.
- Tommy Byrne: I think we live in a culture where it's,
"Pull up your bootstraps,
"and just get it done.
And life's hard."
And that whole narrative of "Be tough,"
and "The grittier, the more you go through,
the stronger you are."
And I think it's a lie. [chuckles]
I think the strong people are the ones that are asking help
and the friends that are standing by them
to give that help
or to point them in the right direction.
- Tommy Byrne knows what it means
to deal with issues surrounding mental health.
It's a hard trail to navigate,
especially when the person
whose footsteps we're told to follow
are lost themselves.
- Tommy: I lost a father to suicide when I was 18,
and I compared my own mental health journey to his
for the longest time, where
"I wasn't that bad," is what I would always say.
And I realized I was white-knuckling it
through a lot of situations when I didn't need to be.
And I remember vividly
finally reaching a breaking point
where I knew I needed support,
and I knew I needed to ask for help,
and I was scared.
- Tommy helped create Bigger Than The Trail,
an organization that uses trail running
as a platform to advocate for mental health.
- Tommy: Bigger Than The Trail
came because my own mental health journey
and my passion for trail running.
So, around the time that I found trail running,
I took my own mental health serious
and got diagnosed with bipolar
and just, I really had a support system in my life
with people, and family, and friends.
And I knew that some people didn't have that in their life.
And I wanted to find a way to make sure people felt supported.
- Through running, the group has helped
over 500 people across the country
with issues concerning mental health.
The goal is not to act as a substitute for therapy
or medical attention,
but to serve as a stepping point
to get the help needed.
- Tommy: What we really advocate for for Bigger Than The Trail is,
as positive as running is,
we want to also build community
and give people access to professional support
so that if running was ever taken away from them,
whether injury, or age, or anything,
they have tools in their toolbox
to continue to have
healthy mental health dialogue and conversations.
- It's by building community that Bigger Than The Trail
has created the most strides.
- Miss Smedemac: Being able to see the things that you struggle with
in someone else
and seeing, not only do they also struggle with it,
but they also succeed.
And looking at someone else and saying,
"Hey, you struggle with the same things that I do,
"and you're out there,
"just running an awesome life,
"you're running your world,
"and I can do that, too,"
and knowing that they're going to be there
to support you and have your back is incredible.
[stream babbles briskly]
- Angela: To determine success,
you could point to the 1,500 months of free counseling
the group has provided people.
An incredible feat.
But it's probably not the best way
to measure their impact.
The best way is by asking this question:
"What does Tommy Byrne mean to you?"
- Relena Ribbons: Tommy changed my life.
I don't know that I tell him that enough.
But I had some other traumatic life,
like severe losses and real grief.
And Tommy's one of the few people
who made me feel
like it's going to be okay eventually.
Being able to know that I could
reach out to folks and say,
"Hey, I'm having a really hard time sleeping tonight.
"These things have happened
and had cascading negative effects on my life."
But they really helped me to see
that it's not going to be forever.
- Miss Smedemac: Tommy means a lot to me.
Tommy is a guy who I can reach out to any time
and say, "Hey, I need a hand.
"I just need somebody to cheerlead me.
I need somebody to hear me."
He's the guy I could reach out to
and say, "Hey, I'm really anxious about this,
"and I just need somebody to hype me up
and tell me it's going to be okay."
We don't have to have this super connection
to know that I can always reach out to him.
- Tommy: I'm not a person that wants it to be about me,
but it's an important topic,
and I think that as unique as I wish my story was,
all of these people have been affected by mental health,
whether it be their selves or through family or friends,
and I think that is why this is important
and why it matters
and why it's worth continuing to fight and put the work in.
So, it does feel good,
but it's more the big picture than how I feel.
- Angela: There are several different trails in life;
some dark, some are narrow,
and some so overgrown we can barely tell
what direction they're leading us.
[feet landing softly]
It's through others
we can start to find our bearings.
Light seeps in,
the path widens,
things thin out.
And we slowly become much bigger
than the trail we're running on.
- Tommy: No matter what you're facing,
you're bigger than that.
You're more than your diagnosis.
You're more than
the endurance sport or race
that you have in front of you.
You're bigger than whatever's in front of you.
? ?