I m a student at Columbia s graduate school of journalism. I was assigned to write an opinion column for one of my classes. Since I m a runner myself, and am planning to run my first marathon this weekend in Philadelphia, I thought it would be interesting to write about marathons.

I m looking for people who ran the New York City Marathon this year to talk about why they ran. If you re available to talk on the phone, that would be great–shoot me an e-mail. Otherwise, I would really appreciate e-mail responses to the following questions:

1. How did you get started running? (When, and why?)>
2. When did you run your first marathon? Why? How many have you run?
3. What do you think attracts people to marathons? Is that true for you? Is it simply the challenge, or is there something more to it?
4. What is your name and age?

— Jenny Fisher
jmf2149@columbia.edu