Why I run.

It takes about half a mile before I feel comfortable in my pace and breathing, so at first that's what I'm reaching for: the easy rhythm, that feeling of settling into the right head space, that singular focus.

Somewhere after the second mile I usually start to feel a little winded, and the little voice in my head starts to tell me it's okay to stop at 20 minutes. Twenty minutes is a good workout, the voice says. I look at the timer on the treadmill and tell myself: 10 more minutes.

And when I power through and make it 10 more minutes, I see that I'm close to three miles, and so I tell myself: go to three miles.

And when I get to three miles, I am sweating in earnest and my heart is pounding, but I see where I am on the little lap marker and say: A quarter of a mile is nothing. And that will get me to a 5K. And so I keep going.

And when I hit that 5K mark my iPod offers up this song, and I say: This song is short. I will run through this song, and I will do it at a pace that fits this song. And so I crank it up to a 9:30 minute pace and toss my towel over the screen so I cannot see how slow or fast I am going, and I keep running, hard.

At the end of the song, my knee feels a little tweaked but it's not bad and I feel so, so good that I decide to keep going. Thanks to the towel I have no idea how long I have been on the treadmill or how far it says I have run, so I think: I will go until I can't go anymore.

And when I get to the part where I feel absolutely drained, I take the towel off and see I am close to the four mile mark, and I have been running for nearly 50 minutes. I am two minutes away from 50 minutes, so I think: I can do anything for two minutes. And I keep going.

After two minutes, I see that I am a little less than a quarter of a mile from hitting 4.25, and I think: Stop underestimating what your body can do, and do it. So I toss the towel back over the screen and run, and run, and just for fun, I crank the incline up a little bit.

I stop at 4.25, but only because I need to get back to work.

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I never ever feel as good as I do as when I'm running, challenging myself, setting those mini goals and reaching them. A good run proves to me that I am better than I think I am, that I can do more than I think I can. Running is literally fighting inertia. I want that lesson to seep into my brain so that it becomes a part of me, and so it will apply to everything I do in my life.