I am a runner; it seems that I always have been. In elementary school I was one of the fastest kids on the playground and I just enjoyed any chance I could get in those silly made-up recess games and gym class exercises to test myself against the other kids. Things weren't quite so easy for me in high school where I played on the basketball team and ran sprints in track. I was pretty much out matched by the upperclassmen in pure sprinting, so the coach directed me to the hurdles where I eventually became League Champion in the 400m intermediate hurdles during my senior year. At college I toyed with the idea of walking on to the track team, at least until I saw the times being put up in my event by guys already on the team. Plus I just couldn't dedicate enough time to running to fit in with Derrick Adkins and Angelo Taylor (400m hurdles Olympic gold medalists in 1996 and 2000 respectively) while still trying my best to get the education that was my first priority. So running went away...for a long, long time.
Twelve years later I saw an ad for the Friends of the Atlanta Opera 5k and decided that it was a cause worth supporting and the t-shirt included with the registration was just too cool. So I trained for a couple of weeks and even got up to 2 miles on the treadmill at the community center. I thought that I was ready to run 3 times further than I had run at one time, even as a 17 year old athlete low those many years gone by. About 5 minutes into the run and I felt like I was going to die! But I didn't, so the experience didn't sour me from ever running again. But I still didn't try again until almost 18 months and one 1,300 mile move later.