Run, Karla, Run!

Anne Hospod ran the New York City Marathon for Team Diabetes.

Runners and charities are like peanut butter and jelly. They just go together. In 2006, runners raised $714 million for charity. Like screaming for ice cream, I’ve run for charity, you’ve run for charity, we’ve all run for charity.

A good friend of mine is a regular charity road warrior. She’s out there year after year, running races and raising money. Tomorrow, Anne Hospod is turning 27, which mean’s she’s been living with Type 1 diabetes for 23 years; she was diagnosed just after her 4^th birthday.

“When I was diagnosed at the age of 4, I remember that my parents were convinced that by the time that I was 20 I would be cured,” Anne says. “Sadly, research has yet to find a cure. I want to show kids that even though there might not be a cure right now, they have every reason to live a healthy, fulfilling, and exciting life.”

So Anne has teamed up with 11 other diabetic runners to raise money for Insulindependence, a charity based in San Diego that promotes healthy diabetes living through motivating kids to exercise, eat well and accept their chronic condition. They organize adventure trips for teenagers throughout the U.S. and pair diabetic professional triathletes with young kids who have diabetes for a special “Triabetes” challenge. Read the rest of this entry →

Tune into The Marathon Show on Tuesday at noon ET for an interview with Karla. She’ll talk about elite runners, blogging and answer caller questions. After airing live, the show will be available for streaming or download on BlogTalkRadio and iTunes.

Runners in the New York City Marathon. Photo by Fergal Carr.

Runners, there are a lot of us out there. Almost 9.5 million Americans finished a road race in 2008 and almost 4.9 million ran on trails, according to Running USA. Millions more run without racing at all: 23.4 million Americans run 50 days per year, or roughly once a week; and about 15 million run 100 days per year, or roughly twice a week, Running USA reports.

As I set out training for my fourth marathon, I began to think about why I do it year after year. Why do I run? Why do we all run? There are probably as many reasons as there are runners.

So here goes. Here are the top 10 reasons I run, in no particular order.

I run because… Read the rest of this entry →

I was having dinner with some friends recently when one of them started gushing about a book he just read: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. His fiancée laughed and said he’d talk about the book to anyone who would listen.

My friend finished his first race—a half-marathon no less—in May, and when I asked him after the race if he was ready to tackle a full marathon, he answered with an emphatic, “No.”

But reading Born to Run changed things. He said it got him excited about running. He said it made him want to get back into a regular training schedule. And he said it made him want to run a marathon. In other words, it inspired him to run.

Good running books will do that. They make you want to fling your book or e-reader across the room and pick up your shoes. They motivate you to tackle a new distance, a new workout, a new training plan, or they get you to run for the joy of running.

Since summer is here, and you’ve probably got some down time scheduled on the beach or by a pool, here are a few of the all-time great running reads. I’m not talking about books about training or how to improve your times; I’m talking about books that delve into the who and why of running, not just the what and the how. Some of these books I’ve read. Some of them I haven’t. But all of them have earned reputations among runners as reads that will put some pep in your step. Read the rest of this entry →