There’s a special kind of insanity that takes over the minds of habitual runners. Even when we’re not running at all due to one life circumstance or another, we think about running, dream about running, and long for the day when we can return to regular running.

In spite of occasional stretches of time during which I haven’t been able to run, running has been a constant in my life for more than forty years. I was sixteen when I started my official running career (leaving out the running I did as part of regular play as a child). I remember being intrigued by news stories about the “jogging” craze. I asked my mom to take me downtown to buy a pair of running shoes. She did. She bought a pair of white Adidas for me at one of the big department stores. The shoes were made out of thin material and had very thin soles with zero arch or metatarsal support. Most of today’s runners would probably refer to them as racing flats. I was definitely not a racer, but I loved those shoes.

I very first started out running by alternating running and walking around our “block,” a distance of one mile. It took me a while, but over time the walking segments were shorter and shorter and the running segments were longer and longer. Eventually, I was running the whole distance. I was a runner.