Help Morgan raise money

Hi Everyone,

I’m excited to announce I will be running my first half marathon! For most of my life I was one of those people that hated running, I found it an exercise in slow torture. I much preferred biking for the speed, 

hiking for the spectacular views, competitive swimming for the best time ribbons, and soccer or baseball for the teamwork. Yet, I always admired people who made running look effortless, even if I wasn’t “one of those people”. The turning point for me was the pandemic. Life was a little crazy, the world was in lockdown, I had a newborn at home, and I had just found myself unable to work for two months. More yet, I had put on about 20lbs of ‘sympathetic’ weight gain during my wife pregnancy (to date my highest weight reading), the gyms had shut down for COVID, and going for stroller walks wasn’t giving me the exercise I needed for my mental and physical health. I needed a way of getting more intensive exercise while not abandoning my wife with the newborn all day. So I turned to running. It was a bit of an experiment at first, it started as a gentle 20min trail jog with walking the hills. With time my walk/run turned into 20min constant run, which eventually turned into 60min of walk & run, which turned into 60min of constant running. Over time my times were getting faster and a circuit that once took me 60min to run run took me 45min. I also noticed that mentally I was feeling really good, more focused and more productive, and my Fitbit was tracking my resting heart rate and cardio scores edging towards the “athletic” rating. My moment of realization regarding my progress came when I broke my record on the Abby Grind (a very steep hill climb —1082‘ elevation gain in 2kms). I like to the  Abby Grind as a personal fitness test to see where I’m at or how badly out of shape I am. My usual ‘unfit’ time would be 35-40min to the top, my usual ‘fit’ time would 31-33min. I hadn’t tried the grind in several months while I focussed on my run training for a 10k, but I was curious to see how fast I could do it and whether running made any difference…. I managed to set a personal record of 26min, another day I went back and completed the grind twice passing some people 3-4 times. Running is now part of my regular exercise and I’m excited for the upcoming challenge of training for a half marathon. I’ll be participating as part of a team with my Sister-in-law and Husband —- Team Huff’n Puff’s.

I’ll be fundraising for the Canadian Mental Health Association. I’m passionate about the powerful links between regular exercise and the prevention of mental health issues like depression, stress reduction, and reducing dementia risk later in life.

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Research shows that running for 12+ weeks was shown to grown volume and electrical activity in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is really important for emotional processing, and converting short term memory into long term memory. If you look at conditions like dementia, cognitive impairment or even depression, this area of the brain shrinks. Running seems to not only strengthen your body but the mind aswell.

A study on 14,000 people undertaken by Asics during the pandemic found that 82% of runners say running helps to clear their mind, and 78% feel more sane and in control as a result of running. 

New research overseen by Stubbs on a small group of ‘everyday’ athletes produced some startling improvements in brain activity after just 20 minutes of running. The everyday athletes saw an improvement of up to 29% in their ability to deal with stress and an percent increase of up to 18% in relaxation levels. There was also a drop of up to 135% in their frustration levels, and they became less prone to making rash decisions.

I hope to create more awareness about mental health and the positive effect exercise can have on improving and preventing it. Any donations will go 100% towards CMHA mental health initiatives in the Fraser Valley.