Holly, Stacey and I enjoyed a 4-mile group run in Philadelphia last summer. I had met them the day before this run, but I had known them for years.

When I tell people I’m running my first (and only) half marathon on Saturday in Indianapolis, the question I get most often is “Why Indianapolis?” Sure, it’s the largest half marathon in the nation, and the buzz of 35,000 runners, live music and both beer and chocolate milk at the finish line are enough reasons to get me pumped for such a physical challenge. But my answer has to do with eight other women, three of whom I’ve never met in person.

At the urging of my running sisters, I submitted the following essay on the Indy Mini website a week or two ago, and our story has caught the attention of the media in Indianapolis. We’ll be featured in the Indianapolis Star, and there’s a possible local TV news feature in the works too. (As if I won’t have enough pre-race jitters.)

So here’s my answer to the question, “Why drive all the way to Indianapolis to run a race?”

My eight Indy Mini running partners and I found one another nearly eight years ago on a parenting message board. Only one of us was a runner, but all of us were pregnant for the first time, with babies due in June 2007. I suspect most of us assumed we’d help one another through the sometimes scary, sometimes funny complications, symptoms and pains of pregnancy, eventually share birth day photos, and go our separate ways. But that didn’t happen.

Most of those babies are about to finish first grade, and we’re still together. We now have 24.5 kids among us (one of us will run Indy pregnant with her fifth!), and in these last eight years we’ve supported one another not just through teething and tantrums, but through the ups and downs of life. Job losses and big moves. An international adoption. A military deployment. The death of a parent. Our homes and families are flung across the United States from California to Pennsylvania, but eventually our bond of motherhood morphed into a unique sisterhood, without which none of us would be the same.

And one by one, these sisters and I began to run. Each inspired by another, over the last few years we started logging miles, comparing workouts and running gear, injuries and race stories. For some it started as a way to lose the baby weight we’d gained together all those years before. And while that worked (one of us has lost more than 70 pounds in the last year alone), eventually we stopped focusing on the scale and started focusing on more important things, like demonstrating to our kids and to ourselves just how strong we really are.

This race will be the first one we’ve done together; for some of us, it will be the first time we meet. We are coming from eight states, and we’ll be spread across six corrals and three waves that morning, but we will be a collective force at that finish line. Because for almost eight years we’ve had to celebrate one another’s individual victories via email and Facebook. And on May 3, we’ll finally get to do it in person. 

Julia and her four (for now…) kids after finishing a half marathon in Philly last fall. She’s in her second trimester with Baby #5 but will still kick ass on Saturday.

Erin has lost more than 70 pounds since she started running last year. She. Is. Awesome.

Stacey and Sara completed last year’s Indy Mini; it was Sara’s first half.

Lucy after her first half marathon in Florida, where she lives.