The Boston Marathon is perhaps the definitive destination for distance runners. With its tough qualifying requirements, it is the goal to which countless runners aspire. As The Ultimate Guide to Marathons describes it, Boston is “the Mother of all Marathons,…
Like most avid marathon runners, I’ve always dreamed of running the most prestigious marathon race in the world: the Boston Marathon. I first qualified when I was a medical student nearly eleven years ago, but was afraid of requesting time…
The slogan for the 2003 marathon was “Everything you ever needed to know about yourself you can learn in 26.2 miles.” I picked up a great poster with this slogan on it at the pre-race expo. This slogan has rung…
For over a year I dreamed about what it would feel like to run in the 118th edition of the Boston Marathon. Like many others, I felt compelled to be there no matter what it took. I was inspired to…
Race day came and once again it was a long wait at the Vision Center before our 11:15 start. I am once again guiding for Rachel Weeks, a visually impaired runner from South Carolina. We are lucky the VI athletes…
My running career began in 1987, when at the age of 35, I decided it was time to lose a little weight. I ran my first race that May (the Coca-Cola Classic 10K in Corinth, MS), and found a new addiction. Over…
I am an avid runner who normally trains 75 miles per week when not in marathon training phase. I’ve been running consistently for eight years, after seven years of no running while serving in the U.S. Navy. Prior to the…
My wife had died four years earlier – just one month before the marathon which would have been our first. I had trained like crazy for about a year. A dearly loved aunt had flown to Houston to be with…
At noon a field of 15,606 runners left the Hopkinton starting line in the 105th Boston Marathon. I thus found myself among the third largest gathering in the event’s history, a field that included the last three men’s champions and…
For the most part, my story of the 2013 Boston Marathon is very similar to many who have run it before me. From the first time I considered trying to qualify, and thinking “Oh, that won’t be that hard,” to…
