love big much: 10 years ago this week, I became a runner

Anyone who knows me now knows that I am a runner. I run with my jogging stroller and my dog, in Central Park and at the Coney Island boardwalk, in sub-freezing temperatures and in the summer sun. But I didn't start out that way.

In 2004, I decided to run a marathon. This was not the decision of a casual runner aiming for a challenge. It was not the decision of a jogger logging 5Ks and 10Ks who was finally ready to go for a marathon. No, this was the decision of an aggressively unathletic non-runner who had enjoyed a run on exactly one occasion. This was an outlandish decision. This was like the phrase "Go big or go home" was literally invented for my decision to run a marathon.

I decided to train for a marathon using the same method I had employed for every other important event in my life: I turned to a book. It was called The Non-Runner's Guide to Marathon Training, which is kind of like titling something The Non-Football Player's Guide to Winning the Super Bowl or The Non-Writer's Guide to Getting a Pulitzer. My non-runner's guide to marathon training was adamant that if I ran four days per week, in newly-purchased cute matching Adidas outfits, I would be able to finish a marathon and not die.

There are all kinds of moments in life that change you. I remember vividly the exact moment when running changed my life. I was looking in the mirror of my dorm room after the longest run I had ever done (as a non-runner, literally every run I did during marathon training was the longest run I had ever done) and I found myself studying my thighs. Body-type quizzes inform me that I am a "pear," so my thighs are sort of oversized and chunky, but that day suddenly they didn't look chunky; they looked strong.

Why am I taking this walk down marathon memory lane? Because this past weekend I ran the women's-only "Mini" 10K in Central Park (so named because the inaugural 1972 event was christened the Crazylegs Mini Marathon, after the miniskirt -- and also because women weren't recognized as "full" marathon runners back then), which I ran for the first time in 2004, shortly after I made that momentous decision to train for a marathon. I had never run 6.2 miles before, and it was the first race I ever ran.

This year's Mini, then, was my 10-year runnaversary. After dozens of pairs of sneakers, thousands of miles and one pivotal first-date run in Forest Park that led me to my husband and the family we're growing together, I returned to Columbus Circle in my coveted red bib to run the Mini for the 11th year in a row.

Every time I run the Mini I think about all the women who made it possible for me to say, "I am a runner" -- Kathrine Switzer, who was physically accosted by the race director of the Boston Marathon when she became the first woman to enter; Grete Waitz, who literally crapped her pants on her way to winning the New York City Marathon -- and I get emotional. The first Mini had 78 runners. This year there were almost 6,000.

I'll never really be able to explain why I became a runner in the first place, but I know why I stayed one. Happy 10-year runnaversary to me!