Take it and Run: You are a Runner when...

The good people at the Runners Lounge have come up a nice Take it and Run Thursday. You are a Runner when....? A good question and I think a lot of new runners struggle with this bit of self definition. I would assert that:

You are a runner when you schedule runs into your week.

When running becomes such a part of your life that you take the time to schedule time for their completion you have made it. Speed doesn't matter, race forms don't matter. We all run at our own abilities and for our own reasons. Some of those reasons are similar to one another. But we are all running. When our running reaches the level that we want to put it on our schedule then we have made it, in my mind, we are runners. That is all it takes in my mind. We all share the pain and fulfillment that the roads and trails bring us. We are runners.