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Someone in my running group said that I’ve been given a gift. He said this after we’d finished a twenty mile, extremely difficult, run.

“When everyone else is fading, you find another gear. You run harder and faster despite the pain you must be in. How do you do it? Tell me how to do it.”

I said nothing and walked away. I was starting to get emotional and didn’t want him to see it.

The man was trying to compliment me, but what he thinks is a gift, I think is far, far from it.

The reason I’m able to do this over and over is because when I was a child, for several very long, agonizing years, I was abused.

During those episodes, without realizing I was doing it, I taught myself how to withstand extreme pain.

After searching for something for years to help me cope, I started running. Without knowing it at the time, running was a form of therapy for me.

But sadly, my abuser even tried to take that away from me—by burning my foot. But I was not to be held down. I ran anyway.

It’s only been recently that I’ve realized that I run for several reasons. I run to get out the emotions that had been trapped inside for so long. I run to exhaust myself so that I can sleep at night without the nightmares.

Mostly I run to feel strong, to feel in control. When I’m running, no one can get to me; I am fearless.

Is being able to step it up at the end of marathon, when everyone else is fading, a gift? I don’t really think so and here’s why: When I get to that place where my brain is able to switch off the ability to feel the extreme discomfort, it also robs me of awareness. I’ve run several marathons and I really can’t tell you much about the last six miles of any of them.

I can’t use the word ‘gift’ to describe this thing that happens to me; that allows me to do what I do at the end of a marathon, I just can’t. To me, it’s merely the result of a terrible set of circumstances. I’d give it away in a minute to have had a normal childhood, to not have experienced the things that I've been through.

If there is any way to keep even one person from experiencing the trauma of domestic violence or sexual assault, we have to ban together to make that happen.

This is why I’m running this year’s New York Marathon to support the Joyful Heart Foundation.

With the recently launched NO MORE initiative, a unifying symbol has been introduced. Designed to garnered greater public awareness and spark new conversations about these issues, the goal of this campaign is to move these topics higher on the public agenda. There are simply NO MORE excuses for being silent about a problem that affects millions of people, so we have to use every resource that we can to shout out to everyone that we need to put an end to this NOW.

For me, that resource is running.

I thank God every day that I found this outlet and for what it’s done for me. I still hold out hope that it will provide me with even more and I think I saw a glimmer of that hope come to fruition in my last marathon. For the briefest of moments, I was able to still maintain my ability to push through the pain while actually experiencing a sense of true awareness. I remember smiling as it was happening and thinking, ‘This is what it must feel like to be normal.”

What will happen when I run my next race? I have no idea, but I’m really looking forward to finding out.

Please use whatever resources you have to put an end to domestic violence and sexual assault. To donate to my marathon fundraiser, please visit my Crowdrise page: http://www.crowdrise.com/NoMoreExcuses/fundraiser/anneeaston.