Help Me to Understand

I have no connection with these words. Do you?

This is for all you runners out there. Please, help me to understand. What is it about running? What is this obsession you have with pounding feet on hard pavement until your lungs feel like they are bleeding needles? Why do you welcome strains and pains the next day just to do it again and again? Having ice packs on my knees does not a fashion-statement make. I want to understand you, dear runner. You talk about it as though you are flying through the air, an out-of-body experience. Your words about running certainly got my attention and I wanted a piece of the action.

I bought my running shoes, I created my running playlist on my iPod, I stretched, I inserted the ear buds, and I was off. It.was.torture. If it wasn't for Katy Perry's redundant encouragement of labeling me a Firework, I may not have made it back home. More than my colors were bursting, that's for sure. Dear runners, you are so kind to the novice. You try to encourage me to keep at it and promise that, when I "break through the wall", I'll be able to run forever (the thought is nightmarish to me).

I tried it. I didn't like it. I'm over it. Just help me, dear runner, to understand it?!?!