'Every time I speak to someone and hear about their experiences, it leaves me with a sense of running's incredible power to help people overcome pretty much anything.' Each day, millions of people around the world put on their trainers and try to deal with their personal demons and life challenges by going for a run. And, increasingly, they do it knowing that they are not alone: a growing and often virtual community is right there running alongside them. We are all, in some sense, running for our lives. Rachel Ann Cullen's first book, Running for My Life, described her own marathon journey through depression, bipolar disorder and body dysmorphia, and her revelatory discovery that running could transform her physical and mental wellbeing. After hearing from people who had read about her experiences, Rachel wanted to tell some stories of other runners from all around the world - ordinary people living with mental health struggles, grief, cancer and other unavoidable life events who have relied on running to get them through their worst days and to keep going. Running for Our Lives shares moving accounts of hope and resilience; it demonstrates the power of running to help us all overcome adversity, and is a lesson for us all in learning not only how to survive life's challenges, but to thrive.

'An amazing story of one woman's journey through mental illness... So inspiring and proving once again that exercise changes lives' Mel Sykes Suffering from depression but desperate for 'normality', Rachel Cullen found herself in failing relationships, the wrong career and a reliance on alcohol and chocolate to get her through each day. Stuck in an endless cycle of mental misery, she put on a pair of old trainers. She'd never been able to think of herself as a 'runner' before, and the first time she forced herself out the door, she knew it would hurt. Everywhere. She just didn't realise how much it would heal her, too. Interspersed with Rachel's real diary entries, from teenage non-runner to London Marathon finisher (just months after giving birth), she questions if she really can outrun her demons.