Running... because dieting isn't an option

As I ran a 5k for a charity this weekend I realized how strange it was to actually do it willingly.  Not only did I sign up willingly, but I paid them $20 for the pleasure of running up two steep hills.  It dawned on me that suddenly I enjoy running.

It's not that running is necessarily new to me.  It's just that when I started out it was more like punishment.  If our soccer team didn't play well, or we were caught screwing off in practice, we had to run laps around the field.  Or worse yet- a "VA Run" which was about a full mile jog from the practice fields.

Once I was in college I continued to run occasionally even though I played a sport where running anything over a half mile was laughed at.  Tennis was about speed, not distance.  Off-season I ran on the treadmill a few days a week- mostly to counteract the mass quantities of beer ingested on the weekends.  (For the record- it didn't work.  I could have run two marathons a week and not burnt off that amount of empty calories).

Post-college I ran outside because it seemed a nice way to enjoy our short summers.  And because I really stunk at dieting. "The faster I run, the sooner I can eat" became my mantra.

And here I am in my 30's and suddenly realizing that not only do I run for fun, but I'm running distances and at speeds I never could have achieved a decade ago.  Only one woman was faster than me on Saturday.  I beat the girls who were ten-years my junior by nearly ten minutes.

The desire to run as an alternative to dieting has faded in importance.  And it never really worked anyways.  It's been replaced by a raging competitiveness that I didn't even know I possessed.  Winning a 5k in Texas this year was incredible.  Being beaten by a minute by the top female finisher on Saturday sucked.  Even if she was a marathon runner.

New mantra:  "Didn't your mother always warn you about fast women?"