Why I Run

Why do I run? Because I can. I run because I love it. Even when I hate it. Especially when I hate it. Because there’s nothing better than thinking you can’t take another step and then you run another mile and it was faster than all the miles you’d run before you got to the point where you wanted to stop. But you didn’t stop. You kept going.

How do you keep running when that little voice inside your head says it’s tired or thirsty or too hot or kind of bored? I remember race courses I’ve run before. I visualize finish lines I’ve crossed and crank the volume on my iPod. I think about the fifth grade p.e. teacher who hated me and I smile. I recall reading about a woman who recently completed a triathlon despite having lost a leg to cancer. I picture my mother who has Parkinson’s and can hardly move.

One day I was doing pull ups in the fitness room, feeling tired and trying to psych myself up for a run, when an older man came up to me and said, “I wish I could do just one of those” and I felt flattered and guilty and realized that anytime we complain about doing something, there probably is someone somewhere in the world who wishes he or she could be doing that very thing.

So why do I run? Because I can.

Why do you run?