I am a runner.  I think I can make that declaration now.  I have been running over a year.  I run between 40 – 45 miles a week on average.  I have run over 1,200 miles in the past year.

Why do we as runners run?  Why run 5, 10, 13.1, 26.2 miles.  Why do people put their body, mind and spirit into running?

I run because of the challenge.  It is about the goals.  It is about the ups and the downs.  It is making my body do what I never thought it could.  It is about doing what no one thought I could ever do.  Like most runners, I am determined.  It is a part of my life now.  My off day form running is misery, not the days I run.

I have a goal.  I put that goal in the url of my blog so that I would keep it before my eyes.  In some ways, in just a short period of time, it has become part of my identity.

Boston

Yesterday was beyond belief.  I really have no words to express my shock and sadness that something like that could happen.  When tragedies that that occur, it seems to take away something from us as people, as a nation and now, as runners.

Life is about the finish.  When we run a race, we run for the finish.  When we see that line in front of us and we are exhausted and tired, wether a 5K or a marathon, we push harder.  The finish is the goal for the race.  What happened yesterday at the finish line  turns everything on its head.  The finish of the Boston Marathon went from victory to tragedy in a split moment.  Lives where changed forever, not in the way people had thought earlier that day, the way of victory and joy, but in the tragedy of those blasts.

I am praying for those who were hurt, those who lost loved ones.  Those whose lives will never be the same.

We are runners whether we run 1 mile a day or 10 miles a day.  We will continue.  We will persevere.

We will pray for everyone affected and then…

We will put on our shoes and run.