For the past few years I have set myself the challenge of running every day in January – it’s called RED January. It started as a campaign to raise awareness of mental health. January in the UK is notoriously dark, cold and miserable – all things that have a negative impact on a lot of people’s mental health. Doing physical activity is a good way to tackle this and improve mental health.

I knew participating in RED this year was going to be a challenge, with half of it taking place in the UK and the other half while we travelled around India. With a combination of treadmills in hotel gyms, some very short runs and some with stunning backdrops I almost managed to run every day. It was the final day that thwarted me. I knew it would be a difficult as we’d be on a 15+ hour train journey on 31 January. So there was no run that day – but I did do a long walk around the world heritage site at Hampi – which sort of counts. 

To make RED more accessible it’s been expanded to include doing any physical activity in January, so it could be a walk, swim, cycle ride, yoga etc. it’s a great challenge and the real challenge comes next, which it to try and keep up the physical activity in February – but maybe not every day!