This week’s Take It And Run Thursday theme over at the Runners’ Lounge is… 13 words or less: “You are a runner…” Finish the thought in 13 words or less. Here goes:

When I started thinking about food as a fuel for my next run.

This realization hit me like a ton of bricks one day while I was at a lunch with my team. And I realized I had been thinking this way for a while.

I love to eat good food. I am not a food snob—I don’t require fancy food, just good, honest food. I am a foodie. But all of a sudden my world was turned upside down. While I still longed for my next great food fix, the pull wasn’t quite as strong, the need not so urgent. Instead of “we’ve got to eat at this place tonight,” it became “yeah, we should try that place sometime.”

I was running. I was losing weight. I needed better fuel to run better, stronger, faster. I was enjoying myself, and for the first time in my life I started eating to live, rather than living to eat.

Okay, I’ve got one more: I’m a runner because when I can’t run, I can’t wait to run.

This has become so clear over the last 2 weeks as I’ve been dealing with an injured hip. The days off are absolutely killing me. All I want to do is run. I hated running. What happened?