My Personalized Motivational Sign Proved to be Textbook
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, running’s best friend,” which “stands as the benchmark by which all other marathons are measured.” […]
Exercising My Soul as a Boston Marathon Guide for the Visually Impaired
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 off from my third-year clinical rotations to run it. For the following ten years I’ve […]
Mom Tried to Warn Me, but I Wouldn’t Listen
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 true for me for past marathons and I hope the account below will shed some […]
Running through the Center of the World
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 stand up as part of the running community, to help New England heal, to show […]
I might have gotten a tear in my eye, but it was probably rain
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 and guides have the Center as a place to congregate before the race. It is […]
“Stationary in the Middle of the Boylston Street”
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 the next several months I participated in numerous local 5K’s and 10K’s. My running buddies […]
A Day to Run Through the Cramps after Shaking the Winner’s Hand
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 Navy, I ran in high school for three years from 1994-1997, seeing lot of the […]
Nine years apart, tears for Boston
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 my three little kids while I ran the marathon. The very few stars in my […]
A Good Day for Americans
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 the winners of the last four women’s races. However, after passing a half-million spectators along […]
It is the spectators who make the Boston Marathon what it is
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 realizing I may never be able to qualify, to the grueling training it took to […]
Even short fat guys can perform if they train for it!
I first started running in the mid 1980s. I had gained a lot of weight, and determined it was time to take action on that matter. I went to the track at the high school, and a few of my friends were there. They told me they were training for a marathon. I was impressed. […]