How To Become A Runner

Be a high school athlete who was not good enough for college. Miss being part of a team, miss feeling like a jock, miss the electric atmosphere of sporting competitions.

Have a role model. Idolize someone close to you who is a runner. Long to be able to run with your dad.

Have an obsessive personality. Be the type of person who always wants to be the best, who always needs to be prepared, who cannot do something without fully immersing themselves in it. Bookmark a website of local running paths and local races.

Find a million running blogs, start following them religiously. Compare their half marathon training programs. Read their race recaps. Feel an irrepressible desperation deep within your core that you are, at this very moment, missing out on something incredible. Feel the need to be a part of this community.

Go for a run the first day it is warm out. Run for 5 miles. Feel invincible. Stop to instagram the Washington Monument. Understand why your friends love this, why your dad loves this. Appreciate your city, your beautiful beautiful city, with a million places to run and discover. Love the air, love the sun, loathe the treadmill.

Get blisters. Get side stiches. Get bruised toenails. Google your ailments. Read more running blogs about cures. Try them. Feel like a real runner. Have pride in this fact. Love your ugly runner’s feet, proof of your miles logged.

Use the Nike+ app. Become obsessed with the Nike+ app. Treat it like the new facebook. Constantly stalk yourself and your performance and your one friend. Feel immensely proud of yourself each time the total mile tally goes up. Hate everything when the app malfunctions and your stats get messed up.

Realize that runners are superheroes. That running breeds strength. That this community, marked by their overwhelming ability to push human strength to the brink, can and will, always overcome. Stop letting fear and doubt cripple your ambition, for the turnout at the Boston Marathon this year will be bigger than ever. Add run the Boston Marathon to your list of life goals. Be realistic that you must start smaller.

Run past the check in for a half marathon. Feel an undeniable energy and a deep sorrow that you are not included in the festivities. Decide you must be a part of that unbelievable camaraderie that comes out of accomplishing inhuman feats. Decide to run a half marathon. Vow to run a half marathon.

Start running.