In the beginning, there was no running...

My first marathon memory took place in New York City.  I was 19 and had just moved into my first apartment during my sophomore year of undergrad.  The apartment happened to lay along the New York Marathon course in Brooklyn.  It was the year that P. Diddy decided to take on the marathon.  My neighbors across the hall, a group of NYU boys, had decided to make a large banner to hang from the roof of our building protesting P. Diddy’s sweatshops.  They talked about it excitedly for days.  The night before the marathon, I went out to a few bars with some friends and came home as the sun was rising…as was our custom on most weekends.  I slept through the entire marathon, even though my window literally looked onto the street below as people went by.  There was a water stop just before my building, and all I remember seeing of the whole event was a street strewn with little paper cups.  My only thoughts were, “I wonder who’s going to clean all this up?”  Had P. Diddy not run that year, or had to boys across the hall not cared, I probably would have wondered who could possibly make such a mess on the streets of Brooklyn without anyone complaining.

The idea of running a marathon, or running period, had never crossed my mind…and wouldn’t for 3 more years.

My next marathon memory took place my senior year of undergraduate school.  I was student teaching in a 3^rd grade classroom with 2 mentor teachers.  One of these teachers was training to run the New York Marathon and the other was pregnant.  Both of these major life occurrences were foreign to me, but hearing about marathon training blew my mind.  As I listened to this teacher talk about her 15, 18, and 20+ mile runs, I’d cringe.  How could someone run that far?  WHY would someone run that far?  By choice?  For no reason other than to do it?  I was baffled.  The day of the marathon, I crawled out of bed at the bright and early time of 9:30 to be out on the sidelines to cheer her on.  I even made a sign.  I was standing just 10 blocks away from my old apartment where 2 years previous I had slept through P. Diddy’s first marathon.  I stood outside for a half hour waiting for her to run by.  The runners all looked miserable to me.  I just couldn’t fathom what kind of crazy person would do this to themselves by choice.

Today as I write this (6 years after watching that teacher run by, 8 since sleeping through P. Diddy’s race), I write it as a marathoner.  I have completed 2 full marathons and 2 halves.  My next half is in a month, with 2 more on the docket for next 6 months.  Plans for full number 3 are in the works, and I have decided to enter the lottery for the New York Marathon this year.  So the question is, how did this happen?  When did I go from being the unhealthy, unmotivated person I was to being a runner?  I intend to answer this question, but it will take a while.  And, funnily enough, the answer starts with a dog.  Her name is Lucy.