One mile at a time: Community raises $2K for mental health

Warning: This story contains a discussion about suicide

Four miles (6.4 kilometers), every four hours, for 48 hours.

That is the challenge Kurt Gumushel and Victoria McGuire set for themselves as part of an effort to raise money for suicide prevention and the Town of Saint Andrews’ Wellness Committee.

It is known as the Goggins Challenge — and created by David Goggins, a former Navy SEAL who wanted to not only test his physical limits, but his mental as well.

The endurance run also traces back to Alex Quinn, who also ran the Goggins challenge in Saint John and is the subject of a short film titled Running in Circles. 

“This was the first year I wanted to challenge myself to do the full run,” McGuire said in an interview with The Courier. 

Gumushel, also a Saint Andrews municipal councillor, has been doing the challenge for the last four years.

“I’d say we have lost too many good people lately so the Goggins is a good metaphor for perseverance in tough conditions,” he said in a statement. “We can do hard things, go through tough times and come out the other side. Mind over matter.”

Both McGuire and Gumushel were able to raise a little over $2,000 for the Saint Andrews Wellness Committee to help them put on another round of Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) likely in the fall.

“It is designed for mental toughness and physical endurance,” said McGuire, who also owns a local chocolatier business on Water Street. “I couldn’t have done it without my community support, like my husband and my mother-in-law working in the store and taking care of the kids.”

She stopped as well to care for one of her children before hitting the pavement again. 

“But then just prioritizing sleep,” she said. “Just getting as much sleep as I could, because when I thought about doing it in the past that was the part that I thought would be the hardest.” 

McGuire said the community showed up for her and Gumushel, especially those who share a passion for running.

“That made such a huge difference,” she said. “We had one person complete half of the laps with us. We had someone else complete [about] 20 miles total and then at the finale there were people from Grand Manan and Harvey. I could have cried.” 

Coun. Annette Harland said the Saint Andrews Wellness Committee applied to the Fundy Community Foundation to put on the ASIST training — an internationally recognized program by LivingWorks. 

It was able to train 23 people from a variety of different backgrounds, but comes at a cost of $200 per person. 

“It was really well attended,” Harland said, in an interview with The Courier. “The whole purpose is to create a welcoming, supportive and inclusive community. We know that suicide rates have increased significantly, particularly post-pandemic.”

She said that is where the opportunity to train community members becomes so valuable. Harland said the more people are encouraged to have these difficult conversations, the easier it becomes to remove the stigma, and that starts with showing others the support that exists right at home.

Coun. Steve Neil, who is also a member of the wellness committee, said it is continuing to work on developing an active list of resources available to residents in the area. 

“That is one of the, I would say, major roadblocks — people don’t know where to go for help,” he said.

Neil said normalizing it, talking about it, is part of the destigmatization process.

And while McGuire said she originally committed to the Goggins Challenge nonchalantly, she took every mile thinking about her mom — who lost her ability to walk due to illness, her friends who showed up along the way, and all the people who may need help taking it one mile at a time.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911. Help is available 24/7. 

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