In the beginning...

...she did not run with joyful feet. In fact, she did not run. Period.

My husband jokes now about when we were first dating and he proposed that I consider running as an alternative to the gym for exercise. He claims my resulting expression suggested that he had suddenly grown three heads. "Why would anyone want to run?", I reportedly responded in a voice saturated with a mixture of incredulity and revulsion. "I mean, aside from circumstances of unavoidable necessity - what's the point? What are you running to or from? Nothing! It's futile!" I would not be persuaded otherwise. It was this same former self who would also resentfully crack an eyelid and grumble about the light in the hallway when he came to kiss me goodbye at 5:45 in the morning. The same person who considered the idea of waking up early in the morning - particularly for the purpose of physical activity - to be an idea stupid enough to rival that of running. I was the Non-Runner. The Anti-Runner. The No-Way-No-How-Runner...with a deeply buried, seldom acknowledged, never-admitted streak of Runner-Envy.

Flash forward three years.

I have caught "the Bug". I am getting up at 3:30/4:00 in the morning three days a week during the dead of winter in New Jersey because I "have" to run. And I like it. No, I LOVE it. I cannot get enough of it. I tear ravenously through each issue of Runner's World the day it arrives in our mailbox. I pore over my previous run's stats (thanks to my you'll-never-catch-me-without, info-porn-of-choice Garmin Forerunner) on the computer after each and every run (and occasionally in between) to bask in my latest achievements, analyze my progress (or scowl at my lack-thereof), and plot my next feat. I pester friends and family, runners and non-runners alike with my effusive ramblings about all things running. I buy book after book on the subject: How Running Changed My Life; ChiRunning; Running Through the Wall; The Runner's Diet... seeking in part to feed the Bug, and in part a sense of communion with others similarly afflicted.

Here I feel I should confess, despite my huge enthusiasm for the sport, I have no major running feats to my credit. Up until a week ago (when I ran my first 5k), I had never run a race. I am by no stretch of the imagination a fast runner (I ran my 5k at a grueling-for-me 9:31 pace - finishing in 29:34, but my longer runs are typically done at an underwhelming 11:15/mile pace). My weekly mileage is nothing special (so far, I’ve topped out at just under 20 miles), nor is my longest run to date (8.3 miles). After two and a half years of being infected by the Bug, I remain, by all counts, an Unremarkable Runner. I'm okay with that. Nevertheless, in the privacy of my own mind on those brief, yet blissful encounters between my feet and my chosen course of the day, I am extraordinary. I am setting - and breaking - records. I am cruising. I am flying. I am burning rubber. I am a machine. I am a fiend. I am a badass. My ambitions run wild and I fantasize not only about completing my first half-marathon and marathon, but my first 50k, 50M and 100M…my first trans-United States trek! (I did say "run wild").

But why "barefoot" running, you ask? Stay tuned.