Happy National Running Day everyone! In my opinion, this is the best holiday next to Thanksgiving. What’s more important than eating as much as you want, being grateful for your loved ones and then a day focused everything running (well, that’s almost every day for me!).

Anyway, I celebrated the day by dialing into the kickoff call for the Athletes to End Alzheimer’s 2015 NYC Marathon team (more to come on that in a later post) and then ran for 30 easy minutes.

In honor of the day, I wanted to share 10 things about running for me (don’t I do this enough already?)… I run…

1. Because I can. When I was down on myself around mile 23 of the Chicago Marathon, I saw a woman holding a sign that said something along the lines of run because you can because one day you can’t. Talk about a big reminder and a push in the last stretch.
2. To meet new people. Runners are amazing people. Just look at Harriette Thompson. Okay, I haven’t met her yet but I would love to.
3. To celebrate the love of running with friends (and maybe through more runcations). I have met some amazing people through running and have been fortunate to rub off my love for running on some others as well.
4.  To make me a happier person. There is no doubt that I am a happier person after I exercise, but I am even happier person after I run.
5. For the accomplishment. I grew up hating exercise and physical education class. I’ve come a long way.
6. To inspire others. I am your average runner running at an average pace but I am firm believer that if you want to, you can. Anyone can a mile or a marathon, as long as you want to.
7. So I can buy an obscene amount of running shoes and clothes. Someone has to support Garmin, Saucony, Brooks, Lululemon, Athleta… and every marathon expo.
8. To honor the memory of my grandmother. She is the reason I want to raise awareness for Alzheimer’s and she is the reason I make it through any tough run.
9. To put Josh, my family, and friends through torture every time I train and run a marathon. What is more annoying than hearing about how many carbs I need to eat or having to trek through different cities trying to watch me pass over a couple of minutes in a race that takes over 4 hours?
10. To make me a stronger person. Physically and mentally. And this, I promise will make the world a better place, at least for those around me!

Now it’s your turn.

How did you celebrate National Running Day?

And tell me why you run.