Do you have to beat the qualifying time for the Boston Marathon to consider yourself a runner? When can you say you officially meet the requirements?
In 2001, I ran 26.2 miles in Chicago at about a 12-mile-per-hour pace. I had trained six long months in New York City for that day in early October.
And still, if you had asked me, I would not have called myself a runner.
I ran about five days a week during that time, including a long (up to 20 miles) run on Saturdays with a group. But I was not a runner.
I ran in the rain and in the steamy concrete-jungle heat of the city summer. I ran even when I felt like crying and taking my ball and going home. But still, I wasn’t a runner.
Why wasn’t I a runner? I mean, after all, I ran a marathon, people! What was going through my head? Let’s see a sample of those thoughts . . . [REST OF ENTRY](photo: me running the Chicago Marathon, 2001)
