Why we do this?????

Those of you, who are not runners, may wonder why we do this to ouselves?  We pay money to run these races, where at times, we run with cramps in our feet and calves, aching knees, nausea...we keep running even though we feel like walking (which I do), but even when I do walk, I will myself back to running even though it hurts.  I really don't know how to answer the question of why we do it.  For one thing, the comaraderie is awesome.  I have met such wonderful people and made, I hope, lifelong friends.  Before I started running the longer distances it was a pretty solitary activity.  I mean it still is solitary when I do my runs, but not at the races, and I get such support from my running community.  I believe some of it may be the competition, even though I know I am not going to win one of these races I compete against myself I guess.  There are so many times during these races that I really want to stop, get on one of the vehicles that roam these races and tell them take me back, I am done!  But I just can't make myself do it!  As long as I can propel myself forward, I just cannot DNF, Did not Finish.  I feel I would be disappointing not only to
 myself, but my friends and family, even though I know, in my heart, that they would not think any less of me if this happened, but my head just won't let me do it...I just keep going.  Maybe it is because I always thought my Dad was disappointed in me as a kid, (don't mean to go deep here), but sometimes I wonder why I do it myself and it hard to figure out or explain.

Who knew that when I first took that first step out the door with running shoes over 30 years ago, that I would still be at it and running half marathons!  It certainly is character building!  I still haven't really explained why we do it.  I would be curious of what other runners think.

By the way, I won 1st in my age group, for the first time in a half this weekend, which is probably why I am feeling emotional.  It's a great feeling.

Ginny