To be honest, I’m not sure why it’s taken me this long to figure it out. It’s been there all along and I just chose to ignore it for some reason. All those times when I was the fastest person on my college basketball team whenever we ran our yearly two mile endurance test and the fact that I actually liked training for it on my own time. The runs during the warm Indiana Summer nights when I felt like I could go on forever. All of the miles and miles I used to run on treadmills after my daily workouts at the gym. The races that Stephanie and I have ran together since moving to California (like this one). I mean, hello — how have I not noticed this before?

I’ve been a runner all along.

Did you just hear what I just said? I’m a runner.

This might not sound that mind-blowing to you, but for me it’s something that I would have never thought I’d say. I’m a basketball player, not a runner. The only times I used to run is when I had to and I never liked it at all. But somehow, someway it’s slowly become apparent that I’m more of a runner than I ever realized and now that I know that about myself I think it’s pretty awesome.

So what finally made me realize all of this?

It all started a month or so ago when Stephanie and I decided that we were going to run the Indianapolis Mini Marathon while we were home in Indiana. That’s when I started training and running consistently for the first time since my shoulder surgery. Stephanie and I followed the wise words of Hal Higdon and were feeling good about running the half marathon in Indianapolis. The key to improvement and working towards a goal is to have a set strategy that you can go by and running a half marathon is no different. After a few weeks of getting on Hal Higdon’s training schedule I was ready to take on a half marathon and was getting excited about running it.

Then, like with most things in my life, something randomly awesome happens and I end up telling my friend Ryan Mollenkopf that I would run a half marathon with him in Nashville the week before the one I was running in Indianapolis. so I had booked two half marathons on back-to-back weekends and was all about it. Some other people though that I was a little crazy, but I was excited to take on both of the races.

I ran both of those half marathons while back in Indiana and I liked them so much that I felt like I needed to run another race the next weekend so I bought a bib for Bay to Breakers, which is part 12k and part walking Mardi Gras here in San Francisco. It was the 100th running on the race, which was cool, and over 55,000 people had already registered for it. Stephanie and all of our friends were going to walk it and party with thousands of other people in costume, but I had my mind set on running it so that’s exactly what I did.

Running Bay to Breakers was even more fun that the half marathons even though I about died during the race (more on that soon) and being able to run straight through the streets of San Francisco is super cool (even if there are some serious hills involved). After Bay to Breakers I realized even more how much I really love running and these types of competitive races so I guess at this point I’m sold — I”m now officially a runner. How awesome is that?

Oh, and it’s probably worth mentioning that I’m getting pretty good at this whole running thing, too. For Bay to Breakers I ended finishing right at 53 minutes for the 12k, which is about right at a 7 minutes per mile pace. Not bad for a guy who was coming off two straight half marathons and who has never really thought of himself as a runner. I can’t wait to see what I end up running next and don’t worry I’ll be sure to keep you all updated.