WAITE PARK, Minn. — Every runner has a reason to run, for some it's to lose weight, for others it’s a chance to compete, but for Braydon Wiedeman, running helps with the pain.
"The days I didn't run I was having more back pain than the days that I did,” je saod
Wiedeman suffers from severe back pain that stems from a serious car crash that happened eight years ago.
"I had just turned 19. I did break L1 through L5 in my back,” Wiedeman recalled.
He was in a wheelchair for a few months and doctors wondered if he would ever run again.
"When that happened, it put a halt to all athletics," Wiedeman said.
Five years after the crash, Wiedeman says he tried running again. He started slow and steady at first, and pretty soon he was running a handful of miles at a time.
“I was running around five miles or so, but once I got to that point I was in a lot of pain,” Wiedeman explained.
To help with the pain, Wiedeman had a Medtronic electronic spinal cord stimulator surgically inserted into his back last summer.
About six weeks later, Wiedeman started running again and he was surprised by how good he felt.
"After I found out I could run a 5k, then I wanted to run a 10k, and then I wanted to run a half marathon, and that felt really good, " he said.
His New Year's resolution was to run his first full marathon.
He signed up to run the Twin Cities Marathon this weekend and he is hopeful he can run the marathon in less than three and a half hours.
"I mean, my watch is telling me that I can do it in 3:27 and it has a map of the course, so we'll see,” Wiedeman laughed.
Whether he reaches his time or not, just finishing the race will be a major accomplishment.
However, he won’t stop after the marathon is over. Now that he is running again, he won’t be stopping any time soon.
"I think a triathlon would be fun to do. I'm always looking for the next thing to do,” Wiedeman laughed.
KARE 11 will have live coverage of the entire Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday.
You can watch the live stream on KARE11.com or through the KARE11+ streaming app available on Roku, Amazon and Apple TV.