Rio Rancho group runs to raise money for mental health awareness

For more than a decade now, Ann Hager has been combining two of her passions, God and exercise, at First Baptist Church of Rio Rancho.

Hager, who owns ReFocus Fitness Consulting, started Live Inspired! Ministry at the church as a way to inspire the community to make healthy lifestyle choices through God’s word, healthy eating and regular exercise. Hager celebrated the 10-year anniversary of her ministry last April.

Hager also has shared her personal experiences with mental illness and anxiety, and how running and faith have helped her cope through her Running Fearless ministry, which raises money for mental and anxiety awareness and helps participants overcome their fears and doubts.

Hager ran her 10th marathon in 2022 to celebrate her 60th birthday. She partnered with Breaking the Silence New Mexico, which does outreach in schools and fights the stigma of the widespread mental health issue. Hager raised more than $9,000 for the group. Live Inspired! has also made an impact at the church.

“It’s like God puts stuff in my heart, and I’m like, ‘OK, let’s see what happens,'” Hager said. “It just really made a difference to our church as far as growing and as far as the seniors being able to have something to look forward to. And then it brought people into the community; we have people from all over Rio Rancho and even Albuquerque come into the classes.”

Running Fearless Ministries was founded by Hager. Run for God is a national program that she chose for this particular event. This past Father’s Day, Hager again partnered with Breaking the Silence New Mexico to raise even more money through Running Fearless.

The Running Fearless group spent 12 weeks training for the Cherry Garcia 5K race on Father’s Day. Thirty-four people finished the race and raised $3,000 for Breaking the Silence New Mexico.

While the group was working to raise awareness for mental illness and anxiety, they were also doing body study and training for the race.

Running Fearless members also worked on their own mental, physical and spiritual health.

“Run for God is a national program, and they combine faith and endurance for people who want to run or walk their first 5K race,” Hager said. “We met once a week to go over things like Bible study, and each week we had different things that we reviewed as far as you know, running goals, like we talked about running shoes, goals and injury prevention, stretching. Within that we had a Bible study piece. Then along with that, they would do their runs on their own and then on Saturdays we'd meet at an open space and run together.”

Hager’s efforts to raise awareness for mental illness through various means are based on her own experiences with faith and physical fitness and how the two combined to help her.

“I believe in Jesus Christ. I have nothing to hide,” Hager said. “But that's the thing with people that are dealing with mental illness and anxiety. You know, we need to get that awareness out there because people don't want to talk about it. Physical fitness and your spiritual health go hand in hand; that's what's helped me battle anxiety is my running. My running time and my quiet time talking to the Lord while I'm running.”

Hager said the fundraiser was a big success and she plans to do more in the future. For now, she can look back at the impact her ministry has made in her community.

“It was just amazing because they worked so hard. There's so many races out there, but this was just something a little different because it was more about self-esteem and going after something that they want to do for themselves,” Hager said. “The God element of it is just having faith that you know God is going to get you through it, praying while you run and just kind of talking to each other and fellowshipping with each other. So it was pretty amazing. So many people came forward afterwards and said, ‘This was just what I needed. It changed my life.’”

The Run for God fundraiser is open until the end of June. Donations can be made here by adding #RunforGod in the comments after making your donation.