How did I choose to run Boston?

2003-2008

I started running at 40 years old... I was an average athlete as a teenager but running was something I despised and avoided by "fake injury" more than a handful of times at the end of football practices in high school.  I guess you can say, I'm lazy!  I still am... It takes everything I'm made of just to walk up a moving escalator.

My first race was a half marathon that was billed, "fastest half marathon course" (it was down a mountain)... I liked the thought of gravity helping me along.  I trained with my boss at the time and a few other work mates... My knees hurt after every run it would have been easy just to quit!  I needed wraps to ease the pain of every step (please note: 10 years later with ten times the mileage I have zero pain in my joints).  No one in our group came from a running background so training was just getting together on the weekends and running.  I finished the race and felt like I had really accomplished something.  I did a few more halves over the next year or so and one thing about each race that was just like the last was my thought as I crossed the finish line, "I cannot image turning around and doing that again".  I had a real appreciation for marathon runners.