Couldn't have said it better myself

From this month's Runner's World:


But why feel pain at all? “It’s an amazing thing for people outside of running to get their heads around: Why would you put yourself through something you know is going to hurt?” says Atkinson. “A lot of runners say, ‘That’s part of the allure.’ Pain is not just a necessary evil; it’s a fundamental part of the process,” he says. “It’s part of the reason you go out there. You want to feel your lungs burn a little, to feel your quadriceps get fatigued. It’s part of feeling that you’re alive out there on a run.”

For many runners, the urge to suffer represents a turning away from society’s obsession with numbing pain or medicating every discomfort. “Many people are coming to running at a point in our cultural history where they’re saying, ‘I’m not satisfied with this anesthetized way of living,’” say Atkinson.

Long-distance races can also serve as a rite of passage, says Atkinson. “You go into a race with a sense of self, and in the process of encountering this really uncomfortable pain and suffering you’re forced to look in the mirror and find out, What defines me? Am I a person who perseveres? Am I able to endure?’” he says. “You may emerge at the end as a qualitatively different person, and that’s something you carry over to the rest of you life.”