Am I a runner?

For the last several months I've been training to run my first race ever -- a 5K.
To all my amazing friends who could run this distance in their sleep, please don't laugh at the smallness of my goal. For a girl who has never run more than a mile or so without stopping, a 5K was the perfect-sized race to start out with.
My goal was to run without stopping to walk and over the last few months of training, I've really started to enjoy my morning runs. Occasionally, I'd skip a day of running and, amazingly enough, I'd actually miss it. Some mornings I couldn't believe the fact that I was actually looking forward to getting up to go run.
I've seen this kind of attitude before in many of my running friends over the years and I started to wonder: Is it possible? Am I becoming a runner?

Standing at the starting line of the Save A Sister breast cancer race this morning, surrounded by people who looked very familiar with racing, I wondered again, am I a runner?

I think the reason this question kept coming back to me is because I've always viewed "being a runner" as something so far out of my reach but secretly something I have always admired in others. Now, I realize today was just one race, but as I crossed the finish line and heard my own little fan club (Derek and Lydia) cheering for me I decided that, for me, I'm definitely headed in the direction of being a runner :)

For information sake (and because I'm pretty proud) my finishing stats are listed below:

Time: 29:11.5

Average mile (9.23 minutes)
6th place for women in my age category
32nd of 119 overall

Waiting at the starting line

And they're off!

Crossing the finish line :) I did it!

My super supportive cheering section