Uncategorized, wellness

Wellness Wednesday: The Winter Warrior Challenge


This Wellness Wednesday is a running challenge!

My mom has been doing it for five or six years and this is my third year participating. If you know that I ran cross country and track in high school you may be asking why haven’t you done it for five or six years as well? Because this is not just any running challenge, you must run every day for the month of January, outside. In high school if it was too cold we just would stay inside so I was not about to do a sprinting workout just to run three more miles outside after.

This challenge is put on by Marathon Sports and there are three different levels. If you are running five or more miles a day, you are in the gold category. If you do not want to commit to five miles every day but do at least three you are silver. I am doing silver this year! And then if you are out there for at least one mile a day you are bronze. I have also done bronze.

And if running isn’t your thing you can walk, limp, or crawl. Those are all options in the run log when you go to track your mileage. It does not matter how fast you go as long as you are out there.

In the wise words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,


I’m not sure what the reasoning behind having all of those options is but I think they may be tied to this quote. Obama included this quote in his speech after the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013.

I’m not going to lie to you, some days it really sucks to get out and walk in the cold. And it is even harder when you’re out there walking in a bomb cyclone. There are so many ways to get miles in, for example, some days I purposely park in the farthest spot. Or when friends offer me a ride back to the dorms after our night class I tell them I need to walk (it’s only like half a mile away!).


Here is my car in the last possible spot when I ran to Kohl’s to get towels!

So what should you do if you want to get your run streak on? Start today! There is no better time than the present. Look around and  see if there are any running clubs near you, the Marathon Sports near me runs every Tuesday night. There is also a running club near my house called Central Mass Striders, they run a 5k every Saturday and during the summer they do track/speed workouts one night a week. If you can’t find anyone to do with you, just look at your calendar and circle the day 31 days from now and then you can write the miles in your agenda!

Happy running! Or walking, limping, or crawling!