Family, friends, and co-workers seem to be almost constantly asking me some variation of this question and the truth of the matter is that there are literally countless numbers of reasons to either do or not do anything. So why should running be any different?
As I previously mentioned, running long distances had absolutely zero appeal to me for the first 28 years of my life. As an example, I remember my sophmore year in college chatting with a rather attractive young lady who mentioned that she and I shared many of the same classes, had similiar interests, and that she was also a runner in high school. Now remember, I attended Georgia Tech, an engineering school with a rather dismal ratio of men to women so pretty much any opportunity to spend non-class time with a member of the opposite sex was relished. However, when she started talking about joining in on her afternoon 5 mile runs or her weekend long runs...excuses to be elsewhere couldn't come too fast and that was pretty much that.
So what happened to change my perspective? In 2003 I moved from Atlanta to Boston. In Atlanta, outdoor running was not even an option during most of the year given the heat, the humidity, and the horrible air quality - at least not for a beginning runner. But in Boston, we actually get noticable seasonal variations in the weather that allowed me to get outside more during the day. Plus the area is just so much more pedestrian friendly with a true urban core and a functional transit system that it encourages one to do chose not to drive from home to work to shopping mall to big box retailer to...you get the point. So when I saw the advertisement for a night time Halloween costumed 5k fun run through the Boston Common and the streets of downtown I wasn't quite as apprehensive as I would have been in Atlanta. Sure, I had only run that distance that one time before, but that was in the heat of early summer as opposed to the chill of late October. And we were all a bunch of adults running around in costumes (I was a pirate with an eye patch and a cutlass) through the streets of a city. I finished without having to stop or walk, granted I have some serious doubts about the accuracy of the course length, and the post race party was a blast. So I learned that running a couple of miles wasn't necessarily hard and could actually be a lot of fun.
Fast forward 5 months to April, 2004 and the days leading up to the 108th Boston Marathon. The City and the whole region were all abuzz with talk of the Marathon. Stories about the Marathon were everywhere; in the paper, on television, around the office, and on the train. I learned that it is the oldest annual marathon event in the world. I learned that it is the only such event, besides the Olympics and World Championships that requires the participants to qualify for acceptance. I learned that since it is held on a state holiday (Patriots Day) most businesses are closed and hundreds of thousands of people line the 26.2 mile length from Hopkinton, MA to the finish line in front of the Boston Public Library. I learned that the Red Sox arange their schedule so that they always have a home game that day timed to let out as the racers come by, adding thousands of additional cheering spectators to the streets. But until the day of the race I didn't know what any of this really meant.
Watching 3 time Olympian, 2 time Boston Champion, and 61 time participant John A. Kelley sing "Young at Heart" before the start of the race, watching Rick and Dick Hoyt battle the hills of Newton, and watching the crowd shots along the course on TV was enough to get me off the couch and on the train to experience this in person near the final mile at Kenmore Station. It was only here, in the heart of the crowd nearly 25 miles from the start that I could witness the dedication, the determination, the agony, and the ecstasy of the runners, where I could literaly feel the energy coming from the crowd to support runners over an hour behind the winner. I had never experienced any truer expression of love of sport in my entire life and I had attended college bowl games, experienced the NCAA Final Four, attended a World Cup soccer match, and even Michael Johnson's world record gold medal runs at the 1996 Olympics.
I wanted to be a part of this. I wanted _this _experience for myself. Right then and there I vowed to qualify for and compete in the 111th Boston Marathon, to be held in 2007. It was time to start training because my qualifying time as a male under 35 years of age is 3 hours and 10 minutes. This equates to a 7:15/ mile pace over 26.2 miles.
Next time: 0 to 26.2 in less than 3 years, not too difficult. Covering 26.2 miles in less than 3:10, now that's a bit harder.
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