"Tell me ,again, why you're running?"

I was recently complaining to an acquaintance but training for this half marathon. Not someone who knows me very well, but someone who was willing to listen to how much fun training is not. All she said when I was done was,"So tell me why you are running?" The simple answer is because I can. If we wanted to break it down and analyze it further and perhaps make it more interesting I could confess of the deep need for my children to see me in action. To see all of my limbs moving. To witness strength and capability on a physical level emanating from their mother. Something I never got see in my own mom. There is a power to moving your body beyond limitation. Beyond what you thought it was capable of. I want my children to always know I tried and to know that they must also try. Of course right now my children are too young to grasp anything beyond, " Mom likes to run with her friends." Which is s good start.

Each mile I run sparks something new inside me. Another goal becomes within my reach. It is something like that song,"This Little Light of Mine." Sometimes all we need is one shaft of light that blows away the darkness, gives us just enough of an outline to show us that the coat hanger isn't a monster and we have nothing to fear. One of my friends recently ran five miles and was telling me how great she felt afterward. I smiled and responded,"It's empowering, isn't it?" Her own smile tilted and grew and she said," Yes, it really is!" And that is just what it is, empowering. It never felt that way in my twenties and certainly not in my "Kermit" teens. Running was just something to do. Now it feels symbolic, large. I may never run another half-marathon and I can almost guarantee I won't run a marathon, training sucks the fun out of running. But it has made me realize that the only thing that stops us from dog anything, trying anything is ourselves.

When I wake up in the morning and feel tired and tell myself it is going to be bad day or a long day it is like Samantha Stevens has wiggled her nose and made it so. My oldest will miss his us, my husband will forget something important and will need me to bring it to his office, my toddler will only my attention and my four year old will want to finger paint..on my walls. I will discover I have nothing for dinner and no clean underwear. It's enough to make you want to go back to bed and stay there until you can start over with a new sunrise. I was explaining this to some of my mommy friends like this," If I have to take all three kids to Target I just tell myself it is going to be fine and they will behave." It works much better than telling myself how awful it will be because she enough that is what happens. I told them to try it. They all smiled but their eyes said, "You're crazy."

I met another woman a few days ago who is running the same half marathon. She is already up to 11 miles. When I told her I was at 9 miles her eyes sort of bulged and for moment I thought she had some food stuck in her throat. Then I realized she was just shocked that I was so far behind. I started to panic. Perhaps she is right. My training has been anything but regular. I have tried but with three kids, working every weekend and my husband also training it is almost impossible to stick to any kind of strict routine. Not to mention I don't really care for routines. She is at 11 miles. I'm at 9 and my thighs hurt, my knees hurt even my gluteus maximus feels maxed out. How will I make it to the finish line? It was at that moment that I realized I was sinking myself before I even got to the starting line. I was talking myself out of something that I can do. I m running because I can. I am running because it empowers me. I am running because my gluteus maximus has never looked better.

I may take a long time to reach the finish line but waiting there for me will be three little people who won't know how long it took or what it means to me. They will have a memory of a moment when their mom was strong and healthy and ran breathless to them, while they all pointed to the bounce house and Dunkin Donut booth begging for Munckins.

So we can take the pyschologist approach to my running and break it down and beat it like an old rug, spreading dust in a thousand directions and forgetting where it all came from or we can keep it simple and say," I am running because I can."