The accidental runner

I've been running for about 11 years now, but people often mistake me for a lifelong runner. I find this odd because any running I did prior to 11 years ago was under protest.
I first learned to hate running at boarding school, when I played field hockey and lacrosse. Running was a source of punishment rather than joy. Lose a game, run laps. Win a game, run laps. Bad practice, miss practice, complain, sick ... run laps.
Basically, running laps around the field was the cure-all and the end-all for anything that might ail a teen-age athlete.
Once, I joined in the school's annual Bemis-Forslund Pie Race, a 4.3 mile distance. If you ran under a certain time, you earned a pie. That was the only solace to my four point three miles of misery.
In college and in my early 20s, I turned to running out of desperation. I did it because I had to do something. But, the effort felt forced and foreign. There was no flow, no fun.
As the next decade passed, I dabbled in other activities. Lap swim. Lifting weights. Aerobics. Spinning. After baby #3, a friend and I turned to walking as an escape from our kids.
Then, with less available time and family/work pressures mounting, we sped up and broke into a run. Two miles a day. Once a week, we pushed ourselves and did a "long" three-mile run. Baby #4 forced a hiatus, but only momentarily.
Somewhere along the miles, I'm not sure of how or when, running took on a new status in my life. No longer hated, but sometimes still painful and miserable, running became a part of my day, and, ultimately, a part of me.
I ran my first 5K and experienced the first-time flush of accomplishing something I never imagined I could. Next up was a half-marathon, and a marathon, more halfs, 5Ks and 10Ks, and then one more marathon.
Just like life pre-kids and post-kids, I now see myself in terms of before I ran and since I started running. I like myself and, consequently, my life a lot more since I let running in.
In 11 years, no matter how lousy I feel on a run, I have never come back from a run wishing I hadn't gone. Instead, I am always thankful that I mustered the good sense to get out the door.
With running, as with life, I've learned to embrace the moment, good or bad. There is no one without the other. The runs that hurt make me appreciate the ones that don't.
While I cannot anticipate how I will feel on any certain day, I do know that whatever the feeling — joy, disappointment, frustration, satisfaction, pain, agony, bliss — it will pass and I will go on.
Today, I find equal parts amazement and delight to look back on the evolution of running in my life; how running has changed for me and within me. Running, I found, suits me. Who knew?