Mission Accomplished

Look out Boston

I ran a marathon this weekend to celebrate my 60th birthday. It was a great day for running and I managed to qualify for the Boston Marathon in my new age group. As per usual, I went out too fast. That made the last 9 miles a struggle but I won the mind games and kept running to the end. I made it with 4 minutes to spare.

PBS just aired a Nova program on marathoning. They took a group of unlikely runners and trained them to run the Boston marathon. Most of them made it, eventually. They proved that almost anybody can run a marathon. It isn't easy but it is doable.

If anyone had told a 50 year-old me that I would run a marathon on my 60th birthday, I would have called them crazy. I had just failed a stress test and my Doctors told me I had below average fitness. Even that reading didn't motivate me to do much more than walk a bit more.

It is strange how one's life changes on very small pivot points. I met my wife in a billion-to-1 chance encounter in the lobby of an Opera house. After 10 years of wedded bliss, she subtly suggested that pudgy-moi needed to do a little aerobic exercise. I negotiated her down to 20 minutes walking on a treadmill 3 times a week, to be done while she did her regular 30 minutes on the exercise bike. I could have reneged on that deal at any time, but it turned out to be another pivot point. I added a little jogging to the walking, to relieve the boredom. Voila, instant marathoner! Not quite, but the process gave me a series of attainable goals that led to marathon success.

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