To say that all runners are alike or have an addictive, Type-A personality is like saying everyone who lives in Chicago has blonde hair and blue eyes… Today's runner is old, young, mom-on-the-go, ex-jock on a mid-life athletic rebound, hard-bodied, pear-shaped, highly competitive, or one who considers 'running' 26.2 miles as climbing his or her own Everest, even if takes five or six hours. What all runners have in common is a deep, atavistic love of forward motion. We're rapt pupils of basic algebra whose sole curriculum revolves around calculating distance, rate, and time. We're constantly traveling from point A to point B, unless we're obsessively committed to running in place on a treadmill, or going in geometric circles around the track. At big-city runapolooza events, we tentatively find our tiny, personal space amid the collective herd, while waiting anxiously for that exhilarating moment of pure energy release. Although we stand united at the starting line, once the race begins we run alone. When describing the meaning of existentialism, the poet Delmore Schwartz wrote, 'It means that no one else can take a bath for you.' It's the same with being a runner. Running means that no one else can do it for you.