“So are you running this race to….Why are you running this race again?”

Before I ever realized what I was saying, I looked at my friend Keena and replied, “I’m running this race so I can feel like me.”

This summer I drove over an hour to run one mile in the rain. I stayed in on a Friday night and did not go tailgating Saturday morning so I could run it. This Friday, I’m flying to San Francisco to run an 8k (3.7 miles, for those who don’t speak metric.)

I don’t run because I’m out there trying to live the dream from my college days. I run because it makes me a happier—and saner—person.

When I started this blog a month or so ago, a lot of people asked me what I hoped to gain from it. I outlined a scope of purpose to make it sound more legitimate.

Truth be told, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to write about or who I wanted to write to. I just wanted a URL that was all mine, where I could write on whatever topic I wanted, and swear as much as I wanted to. I just wanted to start a website….just because.

And “just because” should be reason enough.

One of my all-time favorite bloggers and is Nora of A Clean Bake. I found her while working at Primal Palate, and eventually interviewed her for a column. The first time we spoke on the phone, we talked for almost three hours. This summer, when my college roommate got married in Milwaukee, I flew into O’Hare and worked from my company’s Chicago office for two days so I could meet her in person.

Clearly, I have a mega girl crush on Nora, but I’m telling you—this woman is a badass.

We met for dinner, I told her about my new job, she told me about her honeymoon, and we swapped ideas on current projects. “Kara, when I started my site I promised myself that I would try to write three times a week. For the first week ever, I didn’t publish a single post.”

I once called Nora the female version of Tim Ferris. She has that relentless attitude where you watch her and think, “For the love of everything good, when do you sleep?” She has her MBA and works a very demanding job in market research, managing A Clean Bake on the side. It’s incredible to think someone who is so type A and analytical, could be so secretly artistic and creative. When she expressed her fear that she thought she would have to choose between her career and her website, all I could think was, oh hell no.

If you have a million ideas running around your head, pick the one that is burning and do that. If you can’t stop thinking about creating your own blog, picking up photography, or teaching fitness classes on the side; do it. Don’t do it for the money or recognition. Do it because you thoroughly enjoy it, and you won’t stop thinking about it until you try.

It’s hard to justify running an entire website on the side when you’re pressed too thin at your day job. It’s hard to justify throwing a dinner party for your friends, when you’re already stressed about your grocery budget. It’s hard for me to justify leaving work early on Wednesdays, just so I can go to a recreational running group. Yet these are the things that make our lives full, and our days worth getting through.

So don’t try to justify it. If it makes you feel alive, that should be reason enough.