Anyone who has followed me on Twitter knows that I am a pretty regular runner. I try to run at least four times a week, and depending on the time of year, my schedule, and other variables, I have run as much as six times a week.

It was not always this way. I have asthma, which didn’t help much as a kid, but that problem has been controlled by medication for years. And although I was a soccer player, I was not much of a runner. Goalkeepers often aren’t.  In my older years, I was known to say from time to time, “I only run when being chased.”

Sometime in 2011, that changed. I started running three miles, most days.  I got a pair of the Nike Free Run Shoes, which may or may not have helped, but I was less sore then I was with the old, stable, and heavy, running shoes I would previously tried to run.  Not long after that I got the Nike+ running app, which tracked my runs and served as a motivator and something of a personal accountability measure, as I shared my run with friends.   

In a little more than three…