“From 278 lbs to the Boston Marathon, one man’s journey”

I wrote yesterday about my running goals.  The main goal I have is to run Boston.  I am making this the purpose of my run each day.  This is a journey for me and not a destination.  After Boston, there will be something else.  Probably the Marine Corps Marathon.  This was the marathon my dad ran in for many years before he passed away.

Anyway, I was considering all this as I ran yesterday.  I really do love running.  I love the fact that an obese middle aged man who tried to run a mile and had to stop at a quarter mile, could, in two years, weigh 100 lbs less and run a half marathon.  Even outside of the weight loss, running is amazing.  I constantly hear of people who one day decide to run a marathon, get off the couch and a year or two later, run a marathon.  I was told that exact story yesterday by a sales rep about his wife and her friends.  She is still running marathons today.

I am not an athlete.  The only sport I ever participated in as a kid was sailboat racing.  That took a very logical mind, but no athletic skill.  In school, as a kid, we would have a physical fitness part of gym each year and we were made to run 600m.  I always came in last.  I hated it.

I’ve said this before, but running is an activity that levels the playing field.  There aren’t many sports that one can participate in and in a year have gone from nothing to winning 5ks.

So why not shoot for the best.  To qualify for Boston I have to run an 8:00 average pace in a qualifying marathon.  I ran my first half marathon in a 7:57 pace.  I really believe I can do this.  I can’t imagine even having that thought a year ago.  To run my first marathon 18 months after I started running and also qualify for Boston?  I am amazed at this sport.

Sorry for going on and on about me, but I guess that is what this blog is about.  One day, after Boston, maybe I’ll write a book about my experience.  I’ll title it, “From 278 lbs to Boston, one man’s journey”.

The cool thing about running is that anyone can do this.  I guess that is the point I am trying to get across.  I have NO athletic ability.  I’m just an IT geek.  But what I do have is a supportive Lovely Wife and two sons who run and help me keep on the path.  Also I have lots of other bloggers writing about their experiences and learn from their ups and downs.  I love my family, I love this community,  I love running!

One thought on ““From 278 lbs to the Boston Marathon, one man’s journey”

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s