I Choose to be a Runner

     I didn’t choose running.
     Running chose me.
     I was never a athlete.
     No one in my family is athletic at all. My eighty five year old grandmother absolutely can not fathom why I have to run eight miles a day.
     ” No one in our family is athletic, why do you have to be?” She asks me all the time.
       My best friend dragged me along on a four mile run four years ago. As I struggled up numerous hills in our mountain town, I panted, I was sweating and I gossiped with her about the things that were important in our lives ( horse racing, cats, and race horses named after cats) I wanted to give up. I wanted her to drive back and get the car. Than as we rounded a corner on the deserted road an amazing thing happened.
      We came around a leave strewn corner of abandoned highway and there was a pack of deer grazing on the side of the hill, munching on what was left of summers dry grasses.
      Suddenly I wasn’t tired anymore. I was invigorated and wanted to explore every trail and see what was around every undiscovered corner.
      A trail runner was born.