If you are reading this in St. John’s tonight then you know the weather is typical for this time of year, wet and cold. It’s the kind of weather where you just want to lock yourself inside and hide until you see the sun. Instead, however, I went for a run. As I ran, I had a chance to ponder a question that a few people have asked me over the last couple month, “why do you run?”

My running started as a desire need to get in shape. Just before Christmas I started having more problems with my back. I have had problems with the past, but this was different, this was causing me to lose sleep (and I lose sleep over very few things). After a few x-rays and a couple visits to the doctor I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my lower back. It’s nothing that cannot be managed now that I know what I am dealing with, but at almost 300lbs I had to loose weight. So starting last November I joined Weight Watchers and started losing weight.

I needed to add physical activity to my routine, so I decided to start running. It was relatively cheap, didn’t involve the gym (not a fan) and was non-contact (something that lead to my back problems in the first place). Once I had a few pounds gone, I signed up for the Resolution Run (early evening on New Years Eve) and used it to catapult me into a new year of running.

Thus far this year I have completed a 5k, will complete a 10k clinic this weekend and have started a Tely 10 training clinic, all with the Running Room. As I progressed through these I found the running became less about weight loss, and more about just challenging myself. When you run, people sometime think it is about winning a race, or completing the course faster than other runners. For most runners this is not the case as you quickly realize your probably not going to become a top level athlete. You don’t feel the need to beat others as some sort of validation, you feel the need to compete with yourself.

With running, there are all kinds of challenges you can find for yourself. They normally start small like run 5 minutes without collapsing and progress to more difficult task like running 5km without stopping. These physical challenges give you something to strive for and once complete give you an amazing sense of accomplishment.

Oddly enough though, the physical part of running is often not the hard part. Of course you cannot get off the couch after lying around for years and go out to run a marathon. But most anyone can get to that point if they train correctly and work there way up to that goal. The biggest challenge is convincing your brain that you can do it.

A couple of weeks ago, my 10km clinic coaches John and Vicky challenged our group to run a 5km route, non-stop. To this point, we had been doing interval training, running 10 minutes and walking 1, and had not had a run without any kind of break. When I first saw this task in my email, I like many in the group screamed “What?” in my head. But over the remainder of the day I start telling myself things like “they would risk discouraging us, they think we can do this” and “try it, you can always take the break if you need it.” That night, aided by some chatting with my clinic mates to distract myself and some internal chatter of “one foot in front of the other, one step at a time,” I finished my first non-stop 5km.

It didn’t stop there once I had broken down the barrier in my mind. That one challenge had allowed me to realize that I didn’t need the breaks if I didn’t want to use them. This weekend, only two weeks later, I ran my 10km of a 12.5km run non-stop (the only breaks I did take were at times when the coach wanted to give the group instructions). Mind you, this didn’t come easy either. Once again I wasn’t convinced I could do this distance just like the I wasn’t convinced with the last. But this time I knew how to deal with my doubt, take it one step at a time and complete the challenge.

That’s why tonight, while the wind was high and the rain was cold, I decide not to stay at home. The route we ran was around Long Pond and then up Mt. Scio Road, lots of hills and about 9km long. The distance and terrain presented me with a good physical challenge and the rain and the cold present the mental one. I am happy to say I conquered both, bring on the next challenge.