Early in January Kerren Fraser had at least four different goals when she started training to run in this spring's Victoria 10K race and she reached every one of them. However, in retrospect, they were minor achievements compared to the unexpected gift she received.

Kerren's father died of a heart attack when he was 47, just a few years older than she is now. So the primary reason for running was to strengthen her heart. Her other reasons were to lose weight, get fit and to prove to herself that she could start and finish a goal, something she says she has never done well.

In February, along with fourteen other novices, she began training with the Women's PACE group, a group led by Donna Spencer who works at the Front Runners store.

After a few weeks, Kerren was amazed at how the group bonded, and thanks to the support they offered each other, she was able to keep going even when the old, "It's time to quit" Kerren would come visiting.

But then, four weeks before the big event ... doctors found a lump in her breast.

"My old self would have said, 'I may have breast cancer, you know. I may not, but I may, so I'm not going to run anymore.' But that wasn't OK with my running pals," she smiled pointing to the women around her. "So I kept seeing them as much as I could because they were filling my cup."

Two weeks before the race, test results came back indicating that surgery would be necessary.

"There I was on the gurney," she grins now, "asking the surgeon if I could be running in two days. Nothing was going to stand between me and that Victoria 10K! And that kind of thinking was so much not like me."

And indeed, two days after the surgery, she was back on the road, all bound up and running. Then, a few days after that, her training schedule dictated that she do one more fifty minute run the next day.

That morning, mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted, she woke up feeling like she had an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. The angel was saying things like, "You can do it. I'll help. Just get one foot on the floor and you'll be OK." And the devil was saying, "It's too early. The weather's lousy. Go back to bed and cuddle with your husband."

Eventually, she got dressed and opened the front door only to be hit by a blast of cold, wet wind. But she forced herself into a jog and off she went bawling her head off. Then, twenty minutes into the run ... the magic ... something clicked, and her thinking changed.

The new Kerren began to feel, "I can do this; and I will do it; and I might not have cancer; and if I do, lots of people have cancer and still run; and how dare I use cancer as an excuse."

Sixty-five minutes later, the first time she had ever run that long, she returned home feeling like a million dollars ... perhaps even ten million.

That afternoon, she got her final test results -- Clear. No cancer.

"I had the toughest mental battle of my life," she says now, "and I won. That was my epiphany. My old self would have given up but I discovered that I now have a lot more inner strength thanks to these women and the Women's PACE group.

Next week I'll talk about six other women from the group. Each has an amazing story to tell.