Why I Run

One of the first times I ran with my teammates, we filled rest-time between track intervals with a discussion about the sports we participated in in high school. The convo kind of went like this: Noel, "basketball"; Natalie, "tennis": Meghan "shot put" (I didn't even know they had this sport outside of the Olympics!); Kiyah, "volleyball, field hockey"; and, Kelley, yes, me, "um, does being president of Drama Club count?" The answer, if you're guessing, is no; being president of Drama Club doesn't count. I wasn't an athlete growing up, far from it, in fact. Below, you'll see evidence of my non-athleticism--check out that round face!






















I didn't start running until I was in my mid-twenties, and when I started, I didn't love it. In 2004, I trained for my first half-marathon, hoping to run it with my dad, a marathon-running maniac who didn't start running until he was 50! Frankly, I hated the training, running 10 miles all alone when you don't love running isn't the greatest. After the half-marathon, I basically wrote off the notion of running a marathon--no way was I going to do THAT training alone.

Fast forward to fall 2007, when happenstance brought me together with "the athletes." I learned that running could be fun if you did it right--stayed strong with weight training, cross-trained, mixed it up with long runs and interval training, and, most importantly, ran with fun, smart, interesting women. So, I find myself training for the New York City Marathon to raise money to teach children to lead active, healthy livestyles (something I wish I learned before I was 25!). And, I can tell you that the reason I run is because I like it! Who knew that the little round-faced girl in the photo above would turn into this lady below: