Kristin Armstrong - Mile Markers: The 26.2 Most Important Reasons Why Women Run

For my brother, Jonwho loves me enough to trade some of his sleep for my happiness.

For my parentsthe best cheering section around.

For my Sweat SistersI could not mark any miles without you: Paige, Katie, Cassie, Hoochie, KT, Courtney, Jena, Ellen, Amy, Amy, Dawn, Robyn, Dinah, Melissa, Alice, Jamie, Terra, Nancy, Ashley, Jenni, Sara, Debra, Karen.

For my Sweat BrothersI am a stronger woman for knowing you: Scratch, Michael, Robert, and Gilbert.

For my children, the finest motivation I have ever knownLuke, Isabelle, and Grace.

I n our high-speed-access, digital world, I am more like a paper calendar with a pink cover. I would rather write on paper, with ink. I would rather go see somebody than call them, let alone e-mail or text them. Today's humor is conveyed with lol and J but I like to be able to recognize someone's laugh from across a room. I like licked mail, stationery with my name on it, and knowing someone's handwriting at a glance. I think it's important to be able to spell without spell-checker. You could say that in many ways I am an old-fashioned gal. So when my boss at Runner's World magazine approached me back in 2006 about writing a blog for the RW Web site, I was not entirely comfortable. Make a connection, over cyberspace, with strangers? What if I only know how to write on paper? I only know how to write the way I talk.

I agreed to try, but I didn't know how to start. I decided to call it Mile Markers, because it would be about more than runningit would be about marking miles on the road of life.

I did what I usually do in a pinch or whenever I'm nervous: I asked my mother, Ethel, how to begin. She said simply to begin the way you begin anything: by remembering your manners. So introductions are in order. My name is Kristin Cate Richard Armstrong. Kristin Cate was hard for my little brother to say, so he called me Kiki, which stuck with me through college and beyond, until my wasband, Lance, a man of few words, shortened it to Kik (sounds like keek, not kick).

Lance and I have three kids: Luke, who is 11, and twin daughters, Grace and Isabelle, who are 9. Having three school-age children means I am usually busy on the mommy-clock, trying to fit my other-aspects-of-self around them. This means when I am not with my kids, I am usually running or writing, two of my passions. I am a contributing editor at Runner's World and the author of six books, and I have done freelance work for magazines like O, Glamour, Parents, and lots of faith-based publications. I give speeches sometimes, too, which usually makes me so nervous that I sweat more than when I'm running and my spit turns to pancake batter when I step up to the mic. I guess I do it because I love words and how they resonate with and connect people. The feeling of translating an emotion or experience into language that makes it communal, when people nod and smile and say uh-huh, is my writing equivalent of a PR (Personal Record). It keeps me hungry, seeking, training.

I have run six marathons, including two Bostons, and one ultramarathon on trails (50 kilometers). I am not particularly fast or talented as a runner. I don't talk much about split times, the newest nutritional theories for runners, best training programs for varying distances, or how it feels to win my age-group. But here is what I do know, and maybe you can relate: I love running. Give me a slow, plodding, painful run. Give me a zippy, light-on-my-feet, springy morning. Give me a downpour. Give me a beast of a hill. Give me a fartlek. (I can't believe I just said that.) Give me a godforsaken track workout if you must. But whatever you do, give me my run. I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when running transitioned from a jiggly, postpartum have to to a can't wait to. But it did. And when it did, something happened for me as an athlete, as a woman, as a mom, as a friend, and as a writerall at once.

This book is the history of that journey. It is an adaptation of previous Mile Markers blog entries, arranged thematically according to a list of subjects that my heart returns to again and again. These are the topics I think about on pensive, solitary runs. They are the things my friends and I dish about over miles in the early morning hours. These are the things I care enough about that I will overcome my shyness on paper or in front of a microphone and be authentic and vulnerable in front of total strangers. I chose broad themes because although I'm sharing my stories with you, this book is about our collective journey as runners and as women. This history belongs to all of us.

So to understand me and what's behind the pages of this book, first of all you have to understand why I run. That's the hardest and easiest question. It's like asking why we love who we love. We love them because of all the precious moments we have spent together, because of all the intimate ways they understand us, the subtle acts of kindness and grace they offer us, the way they accept usgood and badthe way they offer us insight when we are stuck in a bad place, the way they keep us humble and make us feel great all at the same time, the way their presence is our insurance that we will never be numb... because we are at ease in their company, because we love them even when we don't like them, because we like ourselves better when we're with them, because they lead us to our truest selves. Because we can't imagine not.

If running were a person, that paragraph would be my love letter. Running has taken me in and continues to comfort, heal, and challenge me in all kinds of magical ways. I am not a good runner because I am me; I am a good me because I am a runner. There is nothing impersonal about anything when I relate it to running. Running is connected to my family, my parenting, my spiritual life, my fitness, my friendships, my health, my sanity, my peace. I can clear my head and solve problems when I run, or make peace with not knowing. I can find beauty, or at least redemption, no matter what.

Getting to know someone on a long run is more intimate and fulfilling than conversations anywhere else. Let's consider this book a nice long run together, and this is our warmup. We are just starting out, a little stiff, a little slow, just trying to even out our breathing and find the pace that suits us both.

I look forward to sharing the roadand marking the mileswith you.

I love new beginnings.

I love clean slates, late-in-life romances, before-and-after photos, second chances, springing forward and falling back on the clock, birthdays, newborn babies, New Year's Eve, weddings, starting lines, fresh school supplies, accepted apologies, renewed vows, and journals full of blank pages. I love the hopefulness upon embarking. I love the thought of not knowing how things will turn out but the willingness to invest anyway... both the prudent, slow investment and the cowabunga off the cliff. I love new beginnings for myself, but perhaps even more, I love watching someone experience her own. I love new runnersthe exuberance and the defeat, the look of wonder on their faces as they cross the finish line. I know what they're thinking, because I thought the same thing. These are the questions that change every finish line into a starting line: