Treadmill Run

I finally got back up to 3.1 miles today. 3.1 miles at 11:19 minute miles. That's the farthest I have ever run...farthest? furthest? I always get those confused. It is also the fastest I have run that distance. I am trying to steadily push myself to a 10 minute mile pace. I am behind in my training, as I should be at 5 miles at the end of this week, but alas I am still stuck at 3. Hopefully we'll be able to run 4 miles this Friday since both Becky and I have been doing pretty well to get our tempo runs in early in the week. I did feel pretty good driving home tonight, thinking that 3 miles isn't my long run, it's my tempo run. I needed that little boost of, 'yes, you are working your way to becoming a real runner.' I decided yesterday when I only ran 1.5 miles because I didn't feel good that I am not yet a runner. A runner would have run the whole three miles even if they felt sick. A runner would have the mental capacity to rise above tummy queasiness and keep going. That also got me thinking. Will I ever be a runner? I started my quest to become a runner a year and a half ago, and I'm still stuck at 3 miles. I had some apathetic and negative feelings about running yesterday, and when my foster parents (switching to work now) have apathetic or negative feelings, I tell them to dig down and remember their motivation for becoming foster parents. So, I had to dig down and remember my motivation for being a runner. Here it is:

1. I want to be healthy. In a county where it is so easy to be unhealthy (fast food, cars, sedentary jobs, etc.) I want to have a habit to help my heart, lungs, muscles, mind, and waistline.
2. I don't want to get abysmally fat when I, one day in the distant future, get pregnant and have a child. There is a contributor at runnersworld.com who ran through her pregnancy, and I want to be her. Studies show that running is good for mom and baby, especially baby's heart and weight. I also don't want to get drugged up to have a baby, and anecdotally moms have said that being a runner helps with natural, drug-free child birth. (For those of you who think I'm crazy talking about this, my husband rolls his eyes when I start talking about child birth. We are no where even near even trying to have kids, and I spend waaaaay too much time thinking about it!!)
3. I want to look like a runner...or at least someone athletic. This is the purely superficial reason.

Those are my top three reasons, and hopefully they will help keep me going until I really feel like a runner and get addicted to it. If anyone else reads this and has some other reasons to run, I would love to hear them!