“I have watched someone close in my life not be able to move well, losing their ability to live a normal life, and I think as I was getting older that played on my mind – it made me appreciate and seek movement. So about a year ago I started running.
I live in Dunedin so I decided to do the Three Peaks race. I’ve always been a little bit ambitious and I didn’t really train for it. I didn’t quite realise what I was signing up for either. I was confident with the distance, but not with the elevation, or the trail itself. I had never really done trail running before and most of my runs were along the harbour, you know, just boring concrete running. I had been running lots of long slow distances, but no elevation at all. As I said, I didn’t realise at the time what trail running was all about and how important it was to incorporate elevation into your training. I just knew I wanted to do something to push myself. So I did it. And I got it done.
The 3 Peaks race was around the anniversary of when my Mum died. I really wanted to do something to dedicate to her. All through my teenage years I had watched her lose her ability to move and function, in a way we mostly take for granted. That made movement really important for me. Movement and running are something that she was never able to do, so it is quite special to me.
I’m nearly 30 now and my Mum, she died when she was 38. So I was like, oh I’ve gotta start doing something cool with my life because life’s short and I wanted to start having a lot more adventures. And trail running really does take you on a lot of adventures. That’s why I started running and chose the trail race as a personal challenge and something to dedicate to her.
And I just got it done. I did it and despite how hard it was, I learnt a lot from it and it made me really fall in love with trails and trail running. I told myself, if I can do this without any proper training, what can I do if I actually train? And so I improved my training and have been much more consistent. I do a lot of trail running now around in Dunedin and use trail running to take me to beautiful places. And for my mental health.
Now each year I want to do something similar to honour her. And I think that’s the biggest reason why I run. Because she couldn’t.
This March I’m doing 3 Peaks Mountain Race again, but doing the 3 Peaks +1. It’s 56 kilometres and I think it’s about 2 1/2 thousand elevation. When it gets hard, I’ll think of Mum. That always helps me push through.”
Storm @stormeden
(Dunedin)
Photo taken in Milford
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