I'm an athlete?

Yesterday a colleague said to me, "You know, Amber, I didn't know you were an athlete until I heard you talking today at lunch."

I'm an athlete??

I don't think of myself as such. When I expressed this to both my colleague and my husband, they questioned me. I don't know if I can clearly articulate it, but I just haven't ever seen myself as an athlete. As a child, I was a dancer. I hated anything traditionally athletic. I hated to sweat. I'd much prefer to curl up with a book than to run, bike, or swim (though swimming was always my favorite...). In college I found I enjoyed lifting weights, and I started running, but more as a means to an end. The exercise was the means to avoid a fat (rear) end. Then I got a job and stopped exercising and gained 25 pounds. So when I began exercising again, again it was just to lose weight and get fit. An unpleasant punishment for my sloth.

So at what point does one become an athlete? (Substitute your own term here: runner, swimmer, cyclist, triathlete.) I've often heard the argument that the difference between a runner and a jogger is a race entry form. If so, then I'm a runner. And I have, in a way, started thinking of myself as a runner. If the intent is to compete, then that is a recent development, because until 2008, I was not competitive, even in my age group. I am just as startled as everyone who knows me (perhaps more) that that seems to be changing with my 4th in age at the Mardi Gras 10K, and 6th in age at the Trolley Run that honestly would place me in many age groups in various smaller races around here. So I guess if racing with intent to compete makes me a runner, then I am a runner. If the measurement is based on obsession, than I surely am an athlete.

So why don't I think of myself as an athlete?