Want to become a runner? Run.

Here's the story of how you can go from never running to completing your first marathon...

First, you run/walk. You start with a mile or two, running for a few minutes until your lungs feel like they’re about to explode. Then you walk to catch your breath. When your ears stop ringing, you run for a few more minutes.

Then you run a mile unbroken, then two, plodding along, but feeling like you can do this. You don’t need to stop to walk anymore. You’ve learned to fall into a cadence that doesn’t make you feel like you’re about to have a heart attack at the half-mile mark.

You run a 5k. 3.1 full miles, without stopping. You feel great. You were never one of those 5k people, and now you are.

You start running almost every day. You stop thinking about whether or not you are going to run, you “just do it”.

You go to a running store for the first time and trade in those Nikes for a pair of Brooks. The shoes look like ones your grandpa would wear, but they make you feel like you can fly.

You start to push past the 5k mark, hitting some 7-mile days. You start to think: I’m a runner! Your body begins to hurt in ways you’ve never felt before. The pains are the good kind, the kind you asked for, the kind more intense athletes call “weakness leaving the body.”

You start to research running. You learn running as fast as you can for as long as possible is not a sound strategy for getting faster. To run fast, you need to run long and slow. You buy one of those fancy Garmin watches and start to read about training plans.

Could a marathon be possible? After 7 miles, you’re exhausted. 26.2 seems almost impossible, but so did a mile only a few months ago.

You decide to commit, and on a whim you sign up for a marathon. If you’re going to do this you need 100,000 people cheering for you in a place like New York City or Chicago.

You finally commit to a running plan. It tells you that in order to run a marathon, you need to do speed work, steady runs, and long runs. The speed work is the hardest - your watch syncs to the workout plan and beeps at you every few minutes, yelling at you to run faster.

You run a timed mile as part of your training for the first time since the presidential fitness test in middle school. Your time then was 10:00. You’re now capable of running a sub 6:00 mile. How did this happen?

Every weekend, the long runs get longer. You start at 8 miles, adding a mile or two every Sunday. You learn that you can’t run a marathon without eating or drinking. You try all the gross gels that taste like fancy baby food.

When you started running, people on the street didn’t notice. Now other runners give you a nod, and pedestrians often give you a look of envy that you used to give other people. Little do they know that you used to have that look too, and all you did was just start running.

Race day is getting closer. You’ve booked all your travel and accommodation. You’ve read up on pre-race nutrition. Two weeks prior to the race, you go on your longest long run: 20 miles. You plod along for hours, pushing yourself further than you ever thought was possible.

When you finish the long run, you lay on the floor for an hour, feeling a level of physical and mental exhaustion you’ve never felt before. But you’re smiling - realizing that if you can run 20 miles, you can definitely run 26.2.

Leading up to race day, you try to carb load and hydrate all week. You’ve been tapering - meaning the last two weeks of training have been light. Your body has been recovering after that 20-mile run, getting stronger, preparing for the distance you’re about to tackle.

You pick up your race bib. The convention center is packed with other runners - some looking like they’ve done nothing but run their entire lives, others like there is no way they will be able to finish a full marathon. All are welcome here who decide that they are athletes.

The starting line feels like a festival. Music is blaring, everyone is jumping up and down, trying to stay warm. Soon, it’s your turn to head to the starting line. It feels like hours as you walk through the crowds, and finally, the gun goes off. It’s time to run.

Crowds line the entire course. You imagine this must be what it feels like to walk into a stadium with 100,000 screaming fans. People call out for you and wish you luck, tell you that you’re awesome. The first 10 miles feel like nothing.

Octogenarians run walk beside you. Men in their seventies gallop with T-shirts exclaiming that this is their 25th marathon. A teenage girl with crutches pushes along the entire course. Fathers run daughters in wheelchairs. One man has an attendant carrying his oxygen tank.

By mile 22, you’re ready to be done. You’ve been running non-stop for over three hours. Every mile makes this the furthest you have ever run, further than you thought you could run. Your legs are beginning to cramp. You don’t want to be running anymore, but you can’t quit now.

Crossing the finish line is both a highlight of your life and mildly anti-climatic. You’re done. It’s over. You did it. They give you a blanket, a medal, and a banana. You need to poop. Like now.

When it’s all said and done, you look at the photos of you and hardly recognize the person in the pictures. Your concept of self has changed over the last year. You’re now a runner.

You’ve done something special, something not everyone can do. But at the same time, you know the truth: anyone could do this. All that remains is the nagging question that solidifies you are a runner: when’s the next race?